THE VALUE OF HAVING A MENTOR

When I was starting my costume design career many years ago, I was very grateful for the guidance and encouragement I received from several “mentors”. Back then, the word “mentor” was not in common use as it is now, but I realize in retrospect that several key people played a very important role in my life.

Bob Mackie is obviously one of THE most important mentors in my life. When I met him, I had already transitioned from my career as a dancer and actress and started my costume career  co-ordinating the dancers and singers wardrobe for Ann-Margret’s big Las Vegas nightclub act in Las Vegas. For you younger readers, she was a huge star at the time, and had all the best musicians, writers, set designers, and of course, famed costume designer Bob Mackie to do all her fabulous costumes and beaded gowns. 

I remember the first time I met Ann-Margret and Roger Smith, her husband and manager. I had been taken to their house in Beverly Hills, up a dirt road off Benedict Canyon where once Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart lived. It was about ten am, but Ann-Margret had slept late. Eventually she came out of her bedroom, hair tousled, no make-up, but warm and gracious. She hugged me and I was astonished at how petite she was. She asked me if I would put a heavy metal zipper in the back of one of her stage beaded gowns so it would be easier in a quick change. Imagine me, replacing the exquisitely hand sewn zipper in a $10,000 Bob Mackie beaded gown with a big metal zipper! What would he Bob Mackie think?

It wasn’t long after that I met him and I guess something about me struck him as, a year or two later he asked me to be his assistant for the Oscar Awards Show 1980, and then Jubilee, opening at the MGM Grand in 1980. This started a life-long connection with one of the best designers in the business, and with a kind and generous man. I did not call him a mentor, I was just his assistant, but I had the opportunity to watch him work at every level of the process - greeting a star when they arrived for a meeting, sketching, designing, choosing fabrics, choosing the best pattern-maker and team of sewers and tailors to execute the design, and most importantly, fitting it on the performer, usually many times. I watched perfectionism at its best.

There simply was no better training ground for me. I watched everything, asked many many questions, and for many years during my career, called for guidance and advice when I got stuck. Even last year, when I requested an hour out of his busy schedule for an interview for a book I am writing, he willingly gave me his time.

I would be remiss not to mention my other mentors, two designers who worked in Bob Mackie’s company, Peter Menefee, whom I assisted for several years, and Ret Turner, who is known and loved by every designing and costumer in Hollywood. 

So why would someone like me be willing to mentor someone at the beginning of their career? Well, one of the obvious answers is that others helped me so much along the way, and it is my turn to help others. 

I had started this blog with the intention of discussing how to find a good mentor and why it is important, and why I like to mentor talented young designers and costumers, but this is running on too long, and I will have to save it for my next post.

In the meantime, you can find out more about my mentoring and training course at my website www.hollywoodmentors.co

ROBERT FLETCHER, famed Costume Designer

For those of you interested in costume design and costume designers, please enjoy this  article I wrote, for the website of the Costume Designers Guild, my "union", local 892, for most of my designing career in Hollywood.

http://costumedesignersguild.com/articles-videos/news-events/

SAN FRANCISCO, WHAT'S NOT TO LIKE! Plus memories of the late Phyllis Diller

DIANA'S NOTE: I wasn't going to publish this edition of my blog for a week or two, but I saw today that Phyllis Diller has died at age 95. Many of you younger readers will not remember her, but strangely enough, I just wrote about her last night, in paragraph 3 below!

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I spent last weekend in San Francisco, a city I have not visited for at least 20 years. The trip had a dual purpose:  to attend a wedding shower for some dear friends  and to interview one of our finest costume designers Aggie Guerard Rodgers. (The Color Purple, Beetlejuice, Return of the Jedi, need I say more?)

As always, memories came flooding back. I first visited San Francisco in my very early twenties, when I was a dancer with the National company of My Fair Lady. We had previously played in Los Angeles where I saw my first palm tree and ate my first Mexican food, and now we were at the Curran Theater on Geary Street in San Francisco. Right next door at the Geary Theater, Gypsy was playing with Ethel Merman, and since their opening night was right before our opening night, we were able to attend. I had been told that Merman had just heard that Rosalind Russell  was going to play “her” role in the film version, so when she bellowed her opening line “Sing out, Louise” from the back of the house, the place went nuts and cheered and applauded her in support.  Again, when she sang “Mama’s Turn” in Act 2, she brought the house down a second time.

In San Francisco I had my first Ramos Fizz in the little bar across the street, saw my first drag show, and went to the Hungry I to see a “new” comedienne called Phyllis Diller. There was a big line to get in, so, in a moment of unusual bravado, I marched to the head of the line with my dancer friends and asked if they extended “professional courtesy”. They ushered us right in past everyone, including it turned out, our company manager! Diller was hilarious, and we quoted her endlessly for months after that.

Touring was great fun at that age, especially with a big musical, where there were lots of dancers and singers my age to hang out with and go sightseeing with. There was a key group of us that stayed friends from those days to now.

About 8 years later I returned to the Bay Area, this time as choreographer for A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. The star, the late Godfrey Cambridge, had rented a houseboat in Sausolito for the run and invited one of the dancers to stay there with him, She wasn’t comfortable with that, so she invited me and another dancer to stay there too. Godfrey was habitually running late, and one night the theater called in a panic because the 4 of us hadn’t shown up yet for the show. We hustled Godfrey into the car, and as we crossed the Oakland Bridge toward the theatre in Berkeley, I looked over at the speedometer and saw that he was driving over 100 mph! We moved out the next day - a wee bit too much adventure for our taste!

I returned to San Francisco two times more as an actress with The Odd Couple and later with The Killing of Sister George. Sometimes I was lonely, as plays have much smaller casts, so I would find a ballet class to attend just to be around people. 

I also learned to drive in San Francisco! Having grown up in Toronto, where the public transit system is so good you don’t need a car, and then moved to New York, where having a car is not necessary either, I had never learned to drive. I got my license in Los Angeles and as soon as we got to San Francisco I rented a car and drove every day. I went up and down those steep hills (not stick shift, thankfully), over the Golden Gate Bridge, and down the winding road on the other side to Stinson Beach. It was scary, but I loved driving, and still do!

And then this weekend, I met Oscar nominated costume designer Aggie Guerard Rodgers. She has lived in the Bay area her whole life and managed a very successful career designing major feature films from her home base in San Francisco, commuting to Los Angeles or location when necessary. A warm and totally down to earth woman, I loved her right away! She shared with me many of her stories and her views for an article I am writing for the Costume Designers Guild website as we had a super lunch at a Creperie in the MIssion District. 

San Francisco - what’s not to like?

(and don't forget to check out my online costume training course at www.HollywoodMentors.co)

MEMORIES OF OLYMPIC COSTUMES!

Back in 1984, I was one of a number of costumers who got to work on the Opening and Closing Ceremonies of the Los Angeles Olympics!

And while the experience of being there for the that opening, and of seeing the lighting of the Olympic torch, are all among the highlights of my life, the two months leading up to them were anything but.

Bob Mackie and Pete Menefee were the costume designers for every element of the Opening Ceremonies, and each and every outfit worn had to be designed, made, and then fit on the participants, of which there were literally thousands! Our workspace was a huge warehouse in downtown Los Angeles, which had a tin roof, no windows, and was unbearably hot in July. The performers were all assigned a day to come and get their costume and were told to expect to spend at least 3 to 4 hours. When they arrived, their name was checked off against a list, their measurements taken, which were  then sent on to the next "station" while they tried on shoes. Imagine over a thousand pair of shoes in one spot! Once they got to the fitting area, they were handed their costume and sent to a cubicle to try it on. Then they came to me, one of 6 "fitters", where we took in, let out, marked hems, and tried to make each individual look perfect. The costume then went to the alteration department, who tried to complete the alterations quickly for the performer who sat in the waiting area.

The hours were incredibly long, and the work very repetitive, and we were paid a small salary as we had been told we were part "volunteers" and were privileged to be "a part of history".

Some of the tasks were quite amusing, in a weird way. It took two full days to remove the pins from the band members' white dress shirts, which arrived fully folded, pinned, and wrapped in plastic. There were 850 members in the marching band, so.....that meant 850 + shirts to unwrap.

Sometimes I was sent out to shop, which I liked, as it got me out and broke up the day. It also pleased the shop owners that I visited, as I was usually buying in great quantity. One task was to go out and find 300 pairs of legwarmers for the dancers! I bought out every dance shop's supply!

As we got closer and closer to the event, we spent more time at the Coliseum, to set up dress rehearsals, and found that the distances between "stage right" and "stage left" were immense and heaven forbid you forgot an item, as it would take 20 minutes to get back to home base and then back again.

One day as we entered the park, our ID badges around our necks, we spotted one of the European swimming teams getting ready for a training session at one of the pools. Without any self consciousness, they stripped off their shorts, and, as we discovered, many did not wear underwear. They casually pulled on their swim trunks while we tripped over each other taking a look!

The last 4 days before the Opening, we worked 18 hours a day. It was grim. I thought I might literally die from fatique. One night I fell into bed, and it seemed like minutes later when the alarm went off. My husband said I burst into tears as I couldn't believe it was morning already!

But the day of the Opening itself was magic. From the moment we passed through security, we could feel the excitement in the air. Organizers, bigwigs,  coaches, volunteers, assistants, guides, stage crew, all were scurrying around, working feverishly toward the 3 o'clock hour when it all started on the button. One moment sticks out in my mind. Every person in the stands had a colored card on their seat and was told that it was going to be used for a special moment later in the ceremony. At about half way through, they all were told to hold up the card with the silver side facing out. On the count of three they were to turn it over. One! Two! Three! And the whole stadium turned into color, with the cards creating the flags of every country participating! It took my breath away, and once more tears flowed from my eyes, this time from joy!

So watching these Olympics in London, 2012, brings back all the memories, intense, difficult, and exalted, that that opportunity bought me. I  was a lucky girl to be "a part of history"!

Costume Training! Dance! Olympics!

My attention has been split recently between a lot of exciting things happening!

1.) My www.HollywoodMentors.co online costume training website is finally getting out there! Yesterday I heard from a potential student in Nigeria, as well as getting a number of emails and enquiries. I do hope I will have time enough to help all the interesting and talented people who contact me for help with entering a costume career in TV and film.

2) I was in Los Angeles over the weekend, enjoying a fabulous visit with my former intern from Belarus, who spent a summer with me on "Passions", and who now is a very successful costumer and pattern-maker, working on the TV series "Dexter". We went together to see the Dizzyfeet Celebration of Dance Gala at the Music Center in LA, where we met a number of our favorite choreographers and dancers from my favorite TV show "So You Think You Can Dance", and witnessed some amazing performances from many talented dance professionals in all types of dance. Even though I have been a costume designer for many many years, I started my working life as a dancer, and, you know what they say, "once a dancer, always a dancer"! We came away totally psyched by the positive energy of the wonderful evening, and it took several days to come down from the natural high!

3) Yes, I've been watching the Olympics every night on TV. It's wonderful to see the young athletes pushing themselves to be their very best, physically, emotionally, and mentally. All achievements come with dedication, commitment, occasional heartache, discipline, consistency, some sacrifice, and lots and lots of passion. Be it sport, costume design, or dance.

4.) We have six more days of filming on the Gregory Popovich movie during the month of August! I have two costumes yet to "establish", that of the "Voice of the American West", an iconic cowboy-for-al-times look, and one for "Johnny Fantastic", a mix between a ringmaster and an old Western medecine man.

Talk again soon. Got to get back to the Olympics.

Latest news on my costume design!

Well well, I can't believe it's been April since I last blogged! That's because I have been very busy with a number of really interesting projects.

Some time in February I was contacted concerning doing costumes for an independent film about Gregory Popovich's Pet Theater. I had seen Gregory Popovich's charming afternoon show with his trained rescue dogs and cats at Planet Hollywood, knew he was a 6th generation Moscow Circus artist, and also knew of the film's producers from previous films. I was intrigued. I read the script and was hooked. It's not my usual type of project, but how can you resist colorful characters and animals! I was also able to contact Antonio Fargas, whom I had worked with on the film "Stealing Las Vegas" and persuade him to play a leading role in the film.

Filming was delayed a couple of times, but finally got underway in May and has been going well ever since. We do not shoot every day, as in a regular feature shoot, because Gregory still performs his show almost every afternoon, and the Thompson Brothers (co-producers and directors) also have other professional commitments, so all in all it has been fun and not too high pressure. It's a lovely story, and I hope the final product does very well with children (of all ages!).

Then in May, two additional things happened. My husband Dominic Calandra, an actor in "Tony and Tina's Wedding", had ten days off as his show moved from Planet Hollywood to Bally's, so we grabbed that window of opportunity to take a quick trip to Sicily, a place we had talked about visiting for some time. I had very little time to put plans in place, but I love being a virtual travel agent, and found some amazing places to stay on the Internet.

The second thing that happened was that I got a call to costume design a modern day version of Mozart's opera "Don Giovanni" for Opera Las Vegas. It was to open two weeks after my return from Italy! I nearly turned it down, but then I couldn't resist the chance the design an opera, something I had never done before. I quickly downloaded a filmed production of the opera from the Metropolitan Opera's website and researched the 5 principle singers, who have all performed at the Met. The director and conductor were also from the Met.

I admit at first I was a little intimidated by the idea of costuming major opera stars, especially on a small budget, but they turned out to be totally approachable and good fun. When I arrived at the first rehearsal, I was surprised (I don't know why!) to see them all in shorts, t-shirts, and flip-flops. Then they opened their mouths and out poured Mozart's music! It was funny to me, but I soon got used to it.

This is probably enough for this post. I will tell you about designing the opera another day.

DIANA ROSS CONCERT IN CENTRAL PARK, 1983!

I recently did an interview with journalist Dustin Fitzharris (for The Huffington Post and The Village Voice) about my memories of the famed Diana Ross Concert in Central Park in 1983  that got seriously interrupted by a sudden storm. Those words barely cover the strength of the storm - I think of it as an almighty near-mythical "tempest"!!

The extraordinary thing, besides the concert itself, is the fact that some 30 years later people are seeking me and others out for our recollections of that night. The concert aired on PBS a few weeks ago, and   the DVD will be released for sale in May. Watching the PBS special I was taken right back to that first night.

July 21st, 1983 started out a hot and sunny day. I had been in New York for several days (from LA) to help with the wardrobe prep. Miss Ross (as we all called her) had a lot riding on this concert and had been working toward it for months. On the day of the concert we got to the staging area early and had rehearsals with the dancers, musicians and all departments. The show finally started on time, but a very strong wind came up and Miss Ross had a hard time keeping her hair out of her eyes. At first it was only annoying. No big deal. Except..... in the distance to the north east we saw a very dark cloud approaching fast and knew that something BIG was about to happen.

Diana was onstage in her skimpy orange lace body suit and as she battled the wind I thought how dramatic it would be if I could get her to put on the orange chiffon cape. The quick change room was right under the stage by the exit stairs, so I grabbed the cape, climbed up the stairs and crouched at the edge of the stage. Finally I got her attention and she beckoned to me to bring the cape to her. It was a struggle to get it on as the wind was so fierce. But before long she started "working it" and became like some magical spirit facing down the almighty storm. The cape streamed out behind her and was captured by the cameras, both video and still, and the amazing images would appear on the front page of newspapers and magazines all over the world.

Then the rain came. We were all drenched! I mean, really drenched. I lost my sandals and was ankle deep in mud. Water ran down the stage and into the quick change room and into my surge strip where I had appliances plugged in! But, soaking wet or not, Miss Ross went on singing and interacting with her adoring fans. She kept the audience calm and kept singing, though absolutely drenched. Eventually I brought her a white designer blazer (Versace I think) that covered her a little better. Park officials, the mayor, the fire department, and the president of Paramount Pictures all were trying to get her to stop the concert out of concern for safety, and eventually, once Miss Ross felt the crowds were calm enough, she finally and reluctantly the stage.

She went into the warmth of her trailer, and eventually into the limo that whisked her away. The director  Steve Binder and video people emerged from the warm dark video truck into the cold rain and almost seemed surprised that it was actually wet outside! The musicians left in their vans, and one by one the crew could do no more and also left.

But the wardrobe crew, me plus about 3 others, as I remember, were still there, gathering up Miss Ross' things when suddenly, ALL THE LIGHTS WENT OUT! There we were in the pitch-black wet muddy Central Park! I told my crew to find black garbage bags and make themselves ponchos, take a sip of some brandy we found, and get their sewing scissors out which they were to hold in their hands as weapons. Thus we walked out of a dangerous Central Park in the pitch black. Eventually we made it to Central Park South, and then to the upscale Parker Meridian Hotel  on 56th st. They had been told to give anyone a room who needed one, and they never looked down their noses at our bizarrely attired group!

The next day, when I saw Diana's photo on the front page of the New York Times I was thrilled! I called her, and she asked me to drive out to her house in Connecticut and gather up some new costumes and gowns as the show would go on again!

And it did! Another lovely sunny day, but this time no storm. Everyone was elated at the return of the thousands and thousands of fans,  and the concert was brilliant. We all felt we had been a part of history. Who knew, after thirty years, that maybe we were.