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Rewind: The epitome of elegance
By Times staff
© St. Petersburg Times
published October 24, 2002
[AP photo]
Edith Head’s costume designs brought her eight Academy Awards. She was nominated 35 times.
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A trivia question about a not-so-trivial Hollywood career:
Who is the woman with the most Academy Award nominations and statuettes?
The answer: Edith Head, whose costume designs were nominated 35 times, resulting in eight Academy Awards. She died on this date from bone marrow disease in 1981, four days before her 84th birthday.
Head's specialty was elegance, from the evening gowns and tuxedos of All About Eve to the pharaoh fashions of The Ten Commandments. Each era was painstakingly researched, although Head seldom sketched her creations, leaving those duties to a platoon of artists she guided. In a few films, her costumes were the only thing to remember. Mostly, her choice of assignments matched her knack for what Audrey Hepburn complimented as "common taste."
Head described her artistry this way in a quote from the Internet Movie Database: "What a costume designer does is a cross between magic and camouflage. We create the illusion of changing the actors into what they are not. We ask the public to believe that every time they see a performer on the screen, he's become a different person."
Check out some home video examples of Head's camouflage, spanning 440 films, from The Legion of the Condemned (1928) to Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid (1982). We'll concentrate on her eight Oscar-winning efforts. Clothes may make the man, but Head's clothes made these movies:
The Heiress (1950) -- Academy Award winner Olivia de Havilland looked stunning as a rich young woman in love with a poor man (Montgomery Clift) while her father (Ralph Richardson) disapproves.
Samson and Delilah (1949) and All About Eve (1950) -- Academy rules at the time allowed both films to qualify for the Oscars handed out in 1951. In those days, costume nominations were divided into color and black and white film categories. Head won both races, for the biblical fashions of the former and the tony designs of the latter.
A Place in the Sun (1951) -- Sure, we mentioned it with Clift's Rewind tribute last week. Take another look at Head's contrasting upper- and lower-class fashions, bringing another dimension to the tragically romantic greed of George Stevens' classic.
Roman Holiday (1953) -- Ever wonder why Audrey Hepburn always looked radiant? Some of our favorite memories have her wearing Head's designs. Hepburn also won an Oscar as best actress, playing a princess escaping her royal life for a fling with a reporter (Gregory Peck).
Sabrina (1954) -- Hepburn again, but this time Head must change her from a servant's daughter to a high society ingenue. The actor's charm is always constant; it's Head's clothes that clue us into the metamorphosis.
The Facts of Life (1960) -- Bob Hope and Lucille Ball never dressed better than in this comedy about two married people (not to each other) having an affair. One of the biggest box office hits of the year earned five nominations but only Head's Oscar.
The Sting (1973) -- Probably the most dapper movie ever made. Paul Newman and Robert Redford are sharpies dressing sharp in 1930s Chicago, running a horse racing scam as revenge on a mobster (Robert Shaw).
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