Women in TV, Film, and (why not) everywhere!

As I work on my book (and yes, I have only 7 more chapters on which to do a substantial re-write and edit!), I think how lucky I have been to be able to pursue a career that I wanted. It wasn’t always so easy for women to choose anything that excited them and go for it.

I have been lucky in my life that I was born into a family where I had many strong women as role models. My paternal step-grandmother was a judge, a mayor, and was, in general, a no-nonsense kind of woman! My great aunt was an obstetrician, one of the first females to graduate in the early 1900’s with a medical degree. There was also a distant cousin who was an Arctic explorer in the early 1900s! So it never occurred to me that I couldn’t do whatever I wanted because I was a woman. It just never entered my mind.

 In high school, most of my classmates were going on to be either nurses or teachers. It seemed a pretty limited selection to me, but I already knew I was going to be a dancer, so what did I care?

 By the early 1970’s I was living in Los Angeles, and it’s not to say that there weren’t obstacles to overcome as a woman. It was difficult at that time, if not downright impossible, for a woman to buy a house without a father or husband to co-sign. Can you imagine! Do you remember Edith Bunker trying to get a loan at the bank? The 1970s were a tumultuous time with all sorts of reexamination of women’s rights going on, and women such as Gertrude Stein, and Erica Jong and Germaine Greer drawing attention. And of course, the demand for equal rights and the sexual revolution changed so much in how we could lead our lives. It was an intoxicating period, with the promise of greater freedom and power!

 And as I started my transition to my career in costume design, many of the top television producers, stars, designers were women. Think Murphy Brown, Designing Women, and Gilmore Girls. The very first producer who took a chance on me, hiring me for The Facts of Life, was a woman, and many of the producers (and a few directors) I worked for in television subsequently were women, including Penny Marshall, Yvette Lee Bowser, Irma Kalish, and Lisa De Cazotte.

 I still believe that it’s important not to feel that you are coming from behind, but that you are starting from the same start line, and that excellence in what you do is the thing that will propel you forward. Not nepotism, not cronyism, not anything but commitment and talent and passion. Call me naive or an optimist, but I’d like to think even men wouldn’t be dumb enough to ignore someone who is really really really good at what they do!

BRIDES: ALL IN A DAY'S WORK

A fan asked me today what my favorite moments were on “Santa Barbara” and who my favorite stars were. Though there were many, the actress who came to mind immediately was Sidney Penny. She was so easy to design for! Not only did she have a lovely body to clothe, but she was so down to earth and adventurous and open about ideas that I had. That is always such a treat! Sometimes I want to design something a little different from the norm, especially when it comes to wedding gowns, and though the producer always has final approval on designs, it always helps when an actor is willing to go along with some crazy ideas.

I have found that bridal gowns tend to always look the same (strapless, full skirts right now) and on both “Santa Barbara” and “Passions”, I wanted my wedding gowns to be unique. I didn't always succeed - sometimes the fans hated what I did, but more about that later!

“BJ” and “Warren” were to wed on the final show of “Santa Barbara” and we were to shoot on location at the gorgeous Ritz Carlton Hotel at Laguna Niguel on the California coast. We filmed in December, and though all the actors were in formal wear, the icy ocean breeze was whipping up the bluff, and we were all freezing! I had wanted to do a 1930's themed gown for Sidney and I had actually found an authentic 1930's dress that I liked in a costume rental house. But I wanted to add my own unique touch, so I designed a white velvet coat to go over the gown, and a "juliet" cap with silk flowers for her hair. Sidney's face and bone structure allow her to wear things close to her head, and she just wasn't a big fluffy veil type! Needless to say, she looked amazing. As she approached her groom, a small breeze picked up the train of the coat and gave the whole outfit some movement. I was standing just off camera going yes! yes! 

Another actress who was a dream to design for is MacKenzie Westmore on “Passions”! Not only is she gorgeous, tall, incredibly shapely, but she also went along with my wild ideas. When "Sheridan" was to wed "Luis" I also went once more to a 1930's theme, basing her gown on my mother's 1930's wedding gown, though I added some sexiness by creating a very bare back, and a keyhole opening in the front. The dress had a stand up lace color, and to me she looked every bit like an amazing Carole Lombard or Marlene Dietrich. However, the young fans didn't get it (who is Carole Lombard to them??) and blogged about what a horrible choice it was!

Another successful wedding gown on Santa Barbara was the 1940's inspired gown for "Julia" when she married "Mason" for the umpteenth time. Nancy (Grahn) told me she liked the 1940's silhouette, and since in the 1990's, when this was being filmed, wide shoulders were still in style, this wasn't too much of a stretch. But to make the somewhat masculine silhouette more feminine, I made it of silk chiffon, with a long sheer cape attached at the shoulders that I hoped would billow in the breeze. I've never been big on tulle veils, at least on camera, as sometimes I think they overwhelm the actress' face, which is important to see.

At least my fictional brides don’t have the wedding day nerves of a real bride! For them, it’s all in a day’s work.


PS I had two great photos posted along with this, but they keep disappearing. Not sure why.

THE GLOBAL REACH OF SANTA BARBARA

Sometimes I wonder if my chosen profession really has any serious positive effect on the world. After all, I’m not feeding the poor, healing the sick, or working to change the world. I design costumes. I help tell stories. 

But every once in a while I am reminded of how much pleasure certain shows I have been part of bring to people in places outside of my limited world. “Santa Barbara” is one such show, a daytime soap opera that told the stories of beautiful people in the sunny California town. 

A few years ago I heard from a young Russian woman from Bellarus who wrote me about how valuable and popular the show was in her bleak communist country, when it first started opening up to the Western world. I can’t express it better than the author herself: 

More than just a popular TV show, “Santa Barbara” was a phenomenon in my homeland. Every night at seven o’clock the street were empty as the citizens of the former Soviet Republic huddled around their television sets to watch the first American program to air in the post-communist era. Not only the world of American culture portrayed through Santa Barbara was mesmerizing, it also provided a possibility for escape from the bitterness brought on by the collapse of the Soviet Union. In a place shrouded in snow for most of the year, where the average temperature seldom climbs above 40F, the warmth and sunlight of that Southern California town and the luxuries if its inhabitants hypnotized most of my fellow countrymen, and certainly myself.

After that email, the young woman, named Antonina Grib, who had come to the US on a tennis scholarship, contacted me again, eventually came to LA to intern with me on “Passions” and is now a very successful and in-demand costumer in Hollywood, living indeed “the American dream”.

Recently, I was “found” by another fan, this time one who lives in Torino, Italy, who to this day  loves Santa Barbara. He runs a fan site in Italy and his interview with me appears this month at the link right below this post.

He wrote me: 

Santa Barbara came to Italy in 1989  and it ran until the last episode in 1999. I followed the soap from the beginning until the end and never missed one episode.   And I often wonder: Why?

The reality is that “Santa Barbara” struck my imagination because I could share it with the person who most of all taught me something about life, my grandmother, Grace.

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When I was about 12 years old, one morning I was awakened by a mild earthquake.

My mother rushed to me and to my grandmother to tell us to leave the house immediately for fear of collapse. We did not have much time, so I took a backpack and filled it with all the videotapes of Santa Barbara. Nothing else interested me, I just wanted to save “Santa Barbara” - (What a hero!). When my grandmother saw me full of videotapes, she began to laugh and then all of us began to laugh. The house did not collapse... perhaps for this reason. That was many years ago, but if there was to be another earthquake today, I would do the same.

So if my career creating lovely costumes for characters on stage or in films and TV has brought a little bit of joy, then that makes it all worthwhile.