Yes, the same guy who owns Angelo Mendi Boutique Salon at 12 N. Tacoma Ave., a block from Stadium High School in Tacoma.

I caught up with del Solar on Thursday afternoon during his lunch break at a top-floor suite of the Beverly Hills Hilton. He had just finished styling the blond tresses of Beverly Mitchell, star of the television family drama “7th Heaven.”

Who will wind up in his chair next? He doesn’t know.

“They don’t tell us,” del Solar said. “I don’t know who’s coming in next.”

Meanwhile, fashion magazine photographers and camera crews from the major networks hung around all morning to watch for stars to come and go.

“Doing hair at the Oscars is every hairdresser’s dream,” del Solar said. “To be able to participate in such an event is incredible.”

Del Solar, 38, serves on the artistic team for PureOlogy, the producer of premium hair care products favored by many in the television and movie industries. Last year, L’Oreal SA, the world’s largest cosmetics company, bought PureOlogy. So from time to time – like for the 59th Primetime Emmy Awards last September – PureOlogy will fly del Solar in to work his hair magic. Meanwhile, expert cosmetologists handle facials, nail treatments and other grooming for the stars.

“All the nominees get invited,” del Solar said. “But the people who are local here in L.A. normally have a local stylist they will go to. Some of the other people coming from out of town, from Europe, for foreign films or from New York, a lot of those people will call on us.”

Typically, del Solar said, he will doll up the stars for the pre-Oscar parties going on every night through Saturday. The ones who like his work will call on him to prep them on Sunday a few hours before the big show.

Del Solar has come a long way from his hometown of Pamplona, Spain, the same city that hosts the annual running of the bulls.

As a boy, del Solar found an interest in style and fashion watching his mother, a dressmaker, work up to two months on her creations. But the boy liked more immediate gratification. So by age 15, he had picked up scissors and begun to learn how to style hair.

He tutored under Luis Romero, art director for Revlon in Europe and owner of Peluquerias Romero, winner of a 2006 Global Salon Business Award as one of the top 80 salons in the world.

Del Solar met his wife, Marci Morrell, a Puyallup opera singer, while both served on a missionary trip more than 14 years ago.

“Angel has been asked to work (permanently) in New York and Beverly Hills. Certainly, he could make a lot more money in Beverly Hills. But we didn’t think that was a good place to raise our children,” Morrell said. “And we wanted to be near our family.”

Del Solar and Morrell have two children, ages 4 and 6. And Del Solar’s parents moved to South Hill from Spain.

“All our family lives within five minutes,” Morrell said.

When he arrived in the Northwest, del Solar joined the Gene Juarez Salons and Spas artistic team. He also opened his own hair salon in Bellevue, then bought a longstanding salon in Tacoma seven years ago and renamed it Angelo Mendi. The Bellevue location closed last year to make way for a new hotel.

Each of the last three years, the Tacoma salon has grown 25 percent, del Solar said.

“It’s been great working in Tacoma,” del Solar said. “We do a lot of the who’s who in town. And still about 30 percent of our business comes from out of town – Seattle, Bellevue, Gig Harbor.”

“I think it’s a great location. We have a lot of potential in our city. A lot of people believe in it now,” he added.

Now, master hair designer del Solar must get back to work. Guess who sat down in his chair? Kevin Sorbo, star of the late 1990s TV series “Hercules: The Legendary Journeys.”

And he just got word that a cast member from the Disney Channel TV series “High School Musical” plans to stop by, too.

Dan Voelpel: 253-597-8785

dvoelpel@thenewstribune.com

Angel del Solar, master hair designer

Hometown: Pamplona, Spain

Residence: South Hill, Puyallup

Business: Angelo Mendi Boutique Salon, Tacoma

Trained: Peluquerias Romero, under Luis Romero, in Varazoza, Spain

Personal: Married to opera singer Marci Morrell; two children

Notable: International educator for Pivot Point and trained hairdressers from Spain, Russia, Portugal, and Argentina; former member of the Gene Juarez Artistic Team; member of the PureOlogy Artistic Team; styled hair for 50 editors of major fashion magazines, such as Allure, Vogue, Cosmopolitan, and Elle as part of PureOlogy product launch

On the Net: www.angelomendi.com

On TV: KING TV’s Evening Magazine, tonight at 7.