GOD BLESS MODERN TECHNOLOGY, SKYPE, AND MENTORS!

I just hung up the phone (no, actually, I was on the computer on skype) with Joe I Tompkins, a very successful, Oscar nominated, Emmy winning costume designer. He is now retired and living  happily in Merida, Mexico, and I was "on assignment" for the Costume Designers Guild to write about some of our best retired designers. What an amazing career Joe has had, and what a wealth of great advice he had.

As a mentor myself, naturally I am biased toward mentors! But I think back to when I was just starting out in a career in costumes and how much it meant to me when a more seasoned designer gave of their time to help me.

Had someone told me back then that I should seek out someone I admired as a mentor and contact them, I would have shrunk in fear from the idea! Who, after all, that was successful and whose work I admired would have the time to give advice to lowly me? Would I have had the courage to ask for help? Could I have made that call?

But actually  I got lucky when I was hired by Bob Mackie to work as his assitant for the Oscar Awards in 1980, and then the original Jubilee production for the MGM Grand. I consider Bob and the designers I worked with at his company Elizabeth Courtney Costumes my mentors. I didn't actually call them that, but everything that I know now about costume design I learned from working with them - watching them, listening to them, asking questions, and following their examples. They were all generous with suggestions or information when asked for, and to this day I feel I could call on any of them if I got "stuck" on a design. One time I asked Bob Mackie whether a white pique vest should show below the point at the waist of a man's black formal tailcoat. He said that Fred Astaire had told him directly that no, it should not, as a clean black line from head to toe elongated a man, and the vest should only show when the arms were raised, perhaps to dance? Astaire also said that he had learned that from the Duke of Windsor, fashion arbiter and innovator. So my simple question to Bob elicited an answer that went all the way back to the 1930's for authenticity! I have never forgotten that moment.

I would suggest to any young designer, writer, film-maker, or creative being, not to be afraid to reach out to those whose careers they admire. Sometimes, yes, they are too busy or not interested, but as often as not, especially in their later years, they are very mellow, very understanding, and actually love the fact that their experience and wisdom might be appreciated by someone.

Being out of your comfort zone is good for a career.

I am around young people a lot in my role as costume designer for independent films, videos, commercials etc and in my role as a mentor, and I am often reminded how terrifying “first times” can be in a career, especally at the start of a new job, a new film, a new anything that requires you to work in your chosen profession and risk failing. 

But risk-taking is essential for moving forward in a career. When I am asked, should I quit my day job and go for full time acting/directing/designing? Should I move to LA? Should I quit the full time dancing gig I have (in the chorus, where I can go no further), and risk everything auditioning for principle roles?..... my answer is always yes! yes! yes! If you are asking the question, then you are ready to take the next step. You must take the next step. If you are too comfortable, you won’t move forward. Somehow the very act of making that scary leap of faith forces you to land on your feet. 

Many years ago, when I was a dancer on Broadway, my friends thought I was crazy for turning down a new job in the long running show “Hello Dolly”, but it was another chorus job and I wanted to act. It took a while, but I eventually got my first acting role as Gendolyn Pigeon in the National Company of “The Odd Couple.” 

Some years later, after five years of being an assistant costume designer, (though an assistant to the very best, Bob Mackie) and wanting to move on,  it took working days as an assitant and nights designing low budget theatre projects for no pay. I often was so exhausted I thought I would die.  But I got my name out there as a costume designer in my own right, which eventually led to my first paid costume designer job on “The Fact of Life”. Flash forward: after I had designed half a dozen TV sitcoms, one producer had the nerve to tell me that I would NEVER get hired for a serious drama or movie, since I was known for sitcoms. I took great delight in proving her wrong! 

The scary times were many. But what I learned is this:

• You never die from exhaustion. You may feel really lousy and think you are going to die, but you don’t.
• You won’t starve. You may get a tiny bit behind on your bills, but you won’t starve.
• You will never get hired for a job that someone doesn’t believe you can do, even if you don’t quite believe it yet yourself.
• You can get through those first frightening days and weeks of a new job if you keep showing up, staying calm, listening and watching, and most of all, believing that each day will get a little easier and you will feel a little more confident. Before long you will feel totally confortable in your position, and before you know it, you’ll want to be out on the edge again!

Remember to check out my online costume training program at http://hollywoodmentors.co

Late Bloomers and Mentors

One of the things that has inspired me to launch HollywoodMentors.co are the emails I receive from aspring designers who ask me for advice about how to get started in a career in costume design. 

It is not an easy question to answer, as the business is so unique, the locations where one can be a designer so few and far between, and the way in so different for each person. But what I DO know is that it is always possible for those who have the the persistence, perserverence, and down right tenacity to do whatever it takes to get that foot in the door.

I once interviewed several highly successful designers about their career beginnings. Al Wolsky, for example, seven time Oscar nominee, and two time Oscar winner for Bugsy and All That Jazz, started “late”, in his thirties. He had started his professional life as a travel agent, working in his family’s firm, but felt after a while it was not for him. He got a job “picking up pins”, as he puts it, at famed costume workroom Barbara Matera’s. The point is, he was willing to do the lowliest of jobs just to be in the right environment and in a place where he could learn from the best.

I did not start my career in costume deisgn until I was in my thirties. After a number of years dancing in shows on Broadway, followed by another 5 or 6 years touring in national companies as an actress, I moved to Los Angeles and met a man who was looking for someone to coordinate wardrobe for the dancers and singers in Ann-Margret’s Las Vegas nightclub act. I didn’t think I knew much about costumes, but I knew about dancers and their needs and next thing I knew I was flying up to Las Vegas, staying at Caesar’s Palace, and organizing and prepping mulitple outfits for 8 dancers and 4 singers. I was working with Ann-Margret, Roger Smith, and was soon to meet my future mentor, the fabulous costume designer Bob Mackie.

It was never officially called “a mentorship” as I was hired and paid as one of his assitants for the show “Jubilee”.  I can trace every job I have had in the last 25 years to my start with Bob, and just about everything I learned about costumes I learned from him. 

As the saying goes, “ luck is when preparation meets opportunity.” I was one lucky girl! 


More on my costume training at http://hollywoodmentors.co