Herman Buchman, makeup artist, author, educator, lecturer and World War II veteran, was born May 20, 1920. "Bucky," as he was nicknamed, attended school in New York City and completed a course in beauty culture at Paul's Hairdressing Academy of New York in December 1939. He received a B. S. degree from Empire State College of the State University of New York (SUNY) in 1975 and was awarded a Ph. D. from the Union for Experimenting Colleges and Universities in Ohio in 1977. Originally aspiring to become a painter, he was drawn to the art of makeup as a means of rising out of the poverty of the Great Depression. In 1941, he moved to California to try to break into the film industry. He was unsuccessful and returned to New York. He was drafted and served in the U.S. Army during World War II in the 294th Combat Engineer Battalion, as part of the D-Day invasion. After the war, he came back to New York and became a charter member of Local 798-Makeup and Hair Stylists-of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE). He later served in various capacities for Local 798.
Herman Buchman was makeup director on numerous Broadway productions, such as The Duchess of Malfi by John Webster, for which he transformed the African-American actor Canada Lee into a white character. Other Broadway productions include Finian's Rainbow, Jenny Kissed Me, The Bird Cage, Crime and Punishment, Silk Stockings, and Galileo. His film credits include The Joe Louis Story, Patterns, Twelve Angry Men, The Miracle Worker, Happy Anniversary, Something Wild, Edge of the City, Long Day's Journey into Night, The Incident, Born to Win, The Night They Raided Minsky's, Within Man's Power and Public Enemy Number One. e also worked as a makeup artist during the early days of television, on programs such as Playhouse 90, Studio One and the original Buck Rogers. Other television credits include game shows such as Hollywood Squares, and soap operas including All My Children, One Life to Live and Ryan's Hope. He worked, as well, for the ABC and CBS television networks on various commercial and industrial projects. For the New York City Opera, he was Director of Makeup and Wigs from 1981 to 1986. Herman Buchman wrote two books: Stage Makeup< (1971) and Film and Television Makeup (1973), both of which became standard texts in the field. As an educator, Herman Buchman taught makeup at the American Theatre Wing from 1946 to 1953, at the Neighborhood Playhouse from 1948 to 1950, the Juilliard School of Music (Opera Division) from 1950 to 1952, and in Juilliard's Drama Division from 1974 to 1979. He also taught at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts from 1950 to 1955. He was a full professor of Theater Arts at SUNY College at Purchase from 1971 to approximately 1981. He was on the faculty of Pace University Department of Speech and Drama from 1971 to 1981, as well as at the School of Visual Arts from 1975 to 1981. At City College of New York, he was an Artist in Residence from 1979 to 1980 and served as a consultant to the New York State Department of Education.
He was married to Dian [sic] Dincin and they later divorced. They had one daughter, Caitlin. He retired in 1986 and moved from New York City to Santa Fe, New Mexico. He died of cancer on January 27, 1996 at the age of 75.