Jay Jorgensen - Creating the Illusion

FOR THE ALBRECHT FAMILY

J . J .

FOR PAT, NORMA, DAVID, AND GAYLENE

D . L . S

: The Wardrobe department at MGM.

: Lana Turner is assisted by wardrobe women for Ziegfeld Girl (1941). Costume design by Adrian.

: Costume designer Jean Louis in the workroom of Columbia Pictures.

: Marlene Dietrich in Kismet (1944). Costume design by Irene.

2015 BY JAY JORGENSEN AND DONALD L. SCOGGINS

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CONTENTS

Ali MacGraw in Love Story (1970). Costumes by Ed Brennan and Linda Howard.

I happen to love the movies. As accidental as it was that I turned out to be a film actress, I have always adored sitting in a darkened theater, feeling myself leave my seat to float away to another projected reality. It has always beenand always will be for mepure magic. If it soon becomes wildly popular for people to watch films on tiny wrist watches, I shall be crushed! I will campaign fiercely for the return of the original scope and wraparound wonder of movies as we have known them for more than a century. I want to be enraptured and transported by the entire creative scope and detail of that fabulous, contemporary art form: Motion pictures.

Probably because my earliest great job was working behind the camera for one of the top photographers of the 1960s, Melvin Sokolsky, I was educated early on as to just how many people it takes to create the best pictures, moving as well as still. And when I did my first big film, Goodbye, Columbus, I was immediately aware of (and grateful for!) the contribution of each and every member of the crew. I knew from that beginning that it is impossible for an actor to step onto the scene and be totally and solely responsible for the success of a film. I have remained in awe of the specific and huge talents of each contributor to every movie in which I acted, and this most certainly includes the costume designer.

I have always loved costume, and fashion, too... dress up, I think it is called. This goes back to my childhood and continues to this day. Certainly the way we dress ourselves in real life tends to set the tone for how we present ourselves, whether deliberately or unconsciously. But what happens as an actor when we are helped by a brilliant costume designer to create a character is so major that it is impossible to overstate the help it offers. I know that some great, great actors are able to convey the nuances of the character they are portraying with virtually no assistance, but I certainly cannot. I love the subtle, sometimes radical, feelings of change and osmosis that happen as the layers and choices of costume are presented: I instantly feel myself sinking more and more into character. The boost that this gives is indescribable, and it totally catapults the actor into the period, the mood, and the way of moving and being in the film. It is invaluableand huge fun, too!

I am so happy that Jay Jorgensen and Donald L. Scoggins have written this incredibly thorough and readable history of the costume designers who have worked in film from the silent era to the present. Creating the Illusion is a veritable encyclopedia of the great talents who have costumed us actors throughout the entire history of film. Some have inspired fashion. Others have recreated historical costume with astonishing accuracy. But all have contributed enormously to the beautiful and moving dream that remains the original magic of the movies.

ALI MACGRAW, APRIL 2015

Oscar-nominated and Golden Globe-winning actress Ali MacGraw began her career as a photographic assistant to Diana Vreeland at Harpers Bazaar. Miss MacGraw later worked as a model and stylist for Vogue. In 1969, she received critical acclaim in her first movie, Goodbye, Columbus, and a year later starred opposite Ryan ONeal in Love Story, which remains one of the highest-grossing films in Hollywood history. She starred in The Winds of War (1983) and Dynasty (1985) on television and made her Broadway stage debut in 2006. A lifelong animal welfare advocate, Miss MacGraw lives in the hills north of Santa Fe.

W hen I began collecting Hollywood costume sketches in 1992, little information was available on the costume designers. Auction companies set their prices almost entirely on the star depicted, with little thought given to the creator of the sketch. I always thought it inequitable that the careers of fashion designers spawned a large number of articles, books, and sometimes even movies; yet the lives of costume designerswhose work so influenced those fashion designersremained largely undocumented. Living in Los Angeles, whenever I met someone who worked in the costume design field, I pestered them with questions about their work and the history of the industry.

I had always hoped that my friend David Chierichetti would one day write the book I wanted to read. David had written Hollywood Costume Design in 1976, which was the first overview of design in films. David had known many of the designers of Hollywoods Golden Age at a crucial timewhen they were retired and could speak freely of the highs and lows of their careers. Over the years, he told me many of the stories that did not make it into his book. One day while we were having lunch, I asked him when he was going to finally write a book with all of those stories. Im never going to write another book, he said. That will be up to you.