DOLPHINS IN THE GULF, LARRY HAGMAN IN FT LAUDERDALE

Last week I had the pleasure of spending a week with my sister in a part of Florida that I was totally unfamiliar with, the Gulf Coast, the part of it they call “The Emerald Shore”. I was enchanted with the incredibly white beaches, blue water and skies, and was feeling so relaxed I wondered how I could think about costumes for my weekly blog!

But then I remembered my 4 week stay in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, in 1992 while filming a TV movie called “Staying Afloat” with Larry Hagman. Other than the fact that it was August, when no one in their right mind goes to Florida (heat, humidity), I remember it fondly as a wonderful experience.

It was actually my very first film, and naturally I was nervous. As often happens, the first day of filming was not a simple one, but one of our biggest days with hundreds of extras. The location was the local racetrack, and we had spectators, horses, jockeys, trainers etc to deal with besides our stars Hagman, Claire Yarlett, Gregg Henry, and Dakin Matthews. But I had a good crew and all was going well until we were getting ready for our first shot with Larry. My assistant came running to me and said that Larry had just spilled coffee all over his trousers! YIkes! I didn’t have a double, so we had to clean off the pants as best we could and then dry them with a hair dryer, and get him back on set as quickly as possible. Actually, he was very embarassed and very apologetic.

Other days we shot on the beach in full sun, and it was all we could do not to strip off our clothes and run into the cool water! We went to Boca Raton for 2 days and shot there at the harbor, pool, and resort, and in a number of other locations around Fort Lauderdale. Since the series of movies NBC planned to film was based on around a renovated 1930’s yacht that once belonged to the Dupont family, Larry had wanted to film in different exotic locations, which was fine with me! (not that he asked).

I love going on location, especially if it is somewhere fairly civilized and for not too long a period. In Florida I was put up in a nice hotel on the 12th floor with a view of the beach and the inter-coastal waterway and could watch boats go by all day on my day off. My husband flew in from Los Angeles for a weekend in the middle of my stay, so we were not separated for too long. Location work is one of the things that has kept my life interesting, varied, and full of new places to discover. Though what I’m really waiting for is a film that shoots on the Amalfi Coast in Italy!

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.

Santa Barbara Blog: AN UNUSUAL AND EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH DIANA EDEN...

Santa Barbara Blog: AN UNUSUAL AND EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH DIANA EDEN...: Diana Eden has decided to release for you of " Santa Barbara Blog " an exclusive interview about her experience in " Santa Barbara ". Du...

MORE THAN A LITTLE BIT COUNTRY: REBA AND STACEY

This past week I had the pleasure of doing the wardrobe styling for a music video starring a young Canadian singer, the up and coming country vocalist and song-writer Stacey McKitrick. As I went to research her, I saw that one of her idols was Reba McEntire. Interesting co-incidence.

Years ago, when I was just starting to make a name for myself as a designer, I got a phone call from a personal manager who was looking for someone to design an outfit for another up and coming country singer, namely Reba McEntire. Reba and I met for a coffee to see if we were a good fit and though I had never much listened to country music, Reba was so down to earth and engaging I felt I could do a good job. 

In looking for inspiration, I turned to a current passion of mine, patchworking, and decided to design for her a high end “log cabin” patchwork skirt, made out of cotton prints in rusts and browns, which I  then had lightly beaded to add that show business sparkle. The blouse was a peasant style, again in a lacy fabric that was also embellished with some beads. 

The tricky part for me was that I chose to have the outfit constructed at Bob Mackie’s company, Elizabeth Courtney Costumes. It was tricky because, on one hand I knew that the workmanship would be brilliant, but awkward, as Bob had been my first employer and mentor,  and now I was expecting to be treated as an equal while bringing my client to his costume workroom.

Everything went well, Reba loved the outfit, and on the evening of the CMA Awards I watched anxiously from home to see my outfit. Horrors! When I first spotted her she was not wearing it! But then later she changed, and when the 5 nominees for Entertainer of the Year were announced, and Reba WON for the first time in her career, I got to see my outfit go up on that stage to accept that award!!

Many years later I was filming a TV series at Sony Studios and saw that she was also filming her sitcom “Reba” a few sound stages away. I was nervous about dropping by to see her, because now she was a huge star, but she was extraordinarily gracious and kind, and sang praises for that costume, telling me it was now on  display in the CMA Museum in Nashville.

So then last week, I got to meet and outfit the lovely Stacey McKitrick, for her first music video. From a small town just outside Vancouver BC, Stacey is tall and stunning, and I and everyone on the crew had a ball working with her. Her music is great and I hope when she is up for her first CMA award, she will call on me!  

For information on online costume training, please visit me at http://hollywoodmentors.com

Chimps, Orangutans, a dog and a rat

Strangely enough, not all my actors have been human. But if you are against putting dresses on dogs or costumes on animals in any way, this post is not for you. 

The first non-human I costumed was a primate called “Bubbles”, owned by Michael Jackson. Bubbles was cast as the mascot for the Peaches team in “A League of Their Own” and had to have a Peaches uniform made for him. My assistant Kiki and I called the trainer and asked for his measurements! - chest, waist, shoulders? do they have shoulders?  We just applied what we usually asked for when measuring humans. When Bubbles came for a fitting, he sat on the table as we tried the outfit on and looked at me with big brown eyes. The dress was a little big. “Can I pin it?” I asked the trainer. “Will he be OK with that?” “ Yes”, he replied, “as long as you don’t stick him”. Believe me, I was VERY careful.

But by far the most extensive and varied were my costumes for non-humans on NBC’s daytime drama “Passions”, a show that never vied far from the weird, exotic, magical, and unique.  In one scene one of the characters has a bad date and turns her nasty suitor into a rat. To make the point, we had to make a little vest for the rat to match the one that the charactor was wearing, and figure out how to keep it on him. And yes, the rat was brought in for fittngs, three in fact.

But anyone who watched Passions for more than one episode knows of the character “Precious”, played by a young orangitang called Bam Bam (a male). Mrs Wallace, Beth’s mother, was so cantankerous that all her nurses had quit, so they finally hired Precious the nurse to take care of her! Then Precious got a crush on Luis, played by the soap opera-gorgeous Galen Gering, and began having daydreams about him! So I had to create outfits for these many fantasies! First I had to make him a wedding gown, then a Scarlet O’Hara “Gone With the Wind” outfit. Then a hot pink peignoir with boa trim. Then an Olympic skating dress in blue sequins. And many many more.

One of my favorites was a green velvet cape with white fur trim for a winter skating scene. I had spotted the cape at a well known vintage store, a child’s cape. I didn’t have the heart to tell the owner that I was putting the lovely vintage cape on an orangutang.

We all adored Bam Bam. On the days he was coming up to the wardrobe department for a fitting, all the wardrobe crew wanted to come and watch. He arrived piggyback on the back of his trainer (who had him since birth) and stood on our big cutting table. Out came the outfit, and on the direction of his trainer, he would lift first one leg and then the other to step into it. So cute. Once I apologized to his trainer for putting him a particularly frilly outfit, and he told me, “he’s an animal, he doesn’t know its pink and frilly”. Oops, of course not.

Not everyone liked seeing this character. There were protests from animal lovers who felt it was un-natural (which of course it was) and cruel. However, other than the fact that Bam Bam didn’t like wearing hats and got bored from too long a shooting shceudle (much like human actors) he never seemed unhappy. He loved getting picked up and posing for photos with his arms around his human friends.

Eventually, Bam Bam grew into a fully grown adult, meaning his acting career was coming to an end. It was a truly emotional day when he did his last scene and all the actors and crew gathered on stage to say goodbye. He seemed to sense that something emotional was happening as he looked at all of us sillies crying our eyes out.

Bam Bam went to a “retirement home for primates” in Florida. Honestly. Every once in a while we hear that someone has ben to see him and that he is healthy and happy and being very orangutangish. 

Don't forget to visit me to find out more about online costume training at

http://hollywoodmentors.co

THE POWER OF RED!

When I was watching the Emmy Awards recently,  every time a gown made an impression on me, it was a red dress! See Kerry Washington, Lea Michele, Sofia Vergara, and  Kate Winslet. I guess I just love red dresses.

There are a couple of iconic red dresses that are burned vividly and indelibly into my brain, never to fade. One was designed by the wonderful Aggie Guerard Rodgers for “The Color Purple” (for which she was nominated for an Oscar Award). It was worn by Whoopi Goldberg as “Celie”, and in the scene she was running along the road towards her house. An ominous grey sky was behind her which made the dark red dress become so much more intense as it swirled around her, and the whole mood felt intense and slightly dangerous.  I’ve often wondered if Aggie just got lucky that day with the weather - would it have been as dramatic on a day with blue sky and sunshine?

The very first costume I designed for a major client was red and was for Ann-Margret. It was for a disco number (yes, disco..... this was a while back!) for her big nightclub act at Caesars Palace, and later the number was used on a TV special. I had already designed the outfits for the male dancers, and now I got to design a dress for the star. The first time she emerged on stage wearing my dress was a moment I will never forget!

But if I am to define red, in a perfect world, it would be a beaded gown by Giorgio Armani on exhibit in Rome at a retrospective of the fashion designer’s work. I was in Rome on holiday and read about the Armani exhibit mounted at the ancient Roman Baths of Diocletian. We entered the exhibit, and the first cavernous room was exceedingly dark. I wondered who would be so perverse as to not light an exhibit so one could see it!  But as our eyes gradually adjusted, we could begin to see display cases of the designer’s subtly colored and understated daywear emerging from the shadows. The shapes were uncluttered, slightly androgynous, and executed in his “greige” palette.  But then we entered the next room, also dark. A single spotlight mounted up high shone onto a red beaded gown, and I gasped. The way our eyes had adjusted to the dim light in the previous room must have accentuated the brilliance of this dress. To me, it was the essence of red. The ultimate red. I shall never forget it.

Most of the time, especially in film, costume designers’ clothing for the actor should be so organic to the actors character that you are unaware of it. But once in a while, a costume is so dynamic to the moment that it lives in one’s memory forever.

For online costume training, visit me at http://hollywoodmentors.co

STARS IN THEIR UNDERWEAR: WHAT REALLY GOES ON IN A WARDROBE FITTING!

I must say, as a costume designer for primarily contemporary films and television, I LOVE what goes on in the fitting room. It is where the actor and I find the character. Together.

By the time I meet the actor, I’ve already talked to the producer and found out what he/she wants (“don’t spend too much”), I’ve talked to the director about the concept, and I’ve talked to  the production designer about the palette.

I’ve done the research, I’ve let it all brew together in my subconscious creative center. I’ve done the shopping, renting, sketching, and now the actor is coming in for a fitting. 

I set up the room with the mirror, good lighting, lots of pins and tags, and the selection of clothing that at this point is just “wardrobe”. With the actor, it will become a costume.

After the initial introductions and small talk, there will be that awkward pause, as the actor realizes he or she must undress and stand before me, near naked and at his most vulnerable. (Does my butt look big? Are my tits sagging? Did I wear clean underwear?)Some actors are totally comfortable “dropping trou” and getting ready to try on clothes. Others are more hesitant, as often it is the very first time they have met me. So at this point, I have to make a decision. Do I step  out of the room? Do I busy myself filling out a tag or looking at my notes? 

Often I just say “are you comfortable with me in the room?”. After years of experience, I can usually sense when I need to step out. I usually do so for really senior actors (even though often they are the most cavalier), for actors whose bodies might cause them to be self conscious, and for cerrtain ethnicities. I actually learned the hard way from an Indian actress who wouldn’t undress in front of me - she told me a woman of her culture would never disrobe in front of another woman.  And I ALWAYS step out if it is a child, as I expect them to have their parent or guardian with them.

Then the fun begins. We try on clothes. I have already brought in the clothes that I think will help them find the character, but I can never tell until it actually goes on the body and the actor “inhabits” it. I try and limit the number of “opinions” in the room, discouraging comments from assistants, girlfriends, agents, etc, so that I can carefully guide the actor into the outfit that I think works perfectly. They need to trust me, and I, in turn, need to earn their trust. I never tell an actor they look good if they don’t. If something is really looking awful on them, I make it my fault saying “damn, take that off, what was I thinking bringing that in”. I also know not to say “OMG, you have such a hot body!”, even though I might be thinking it!

Eventually I can tell from the most subtle of body language that the actor is starting to feel right in the clothing. Now it is beginning to become a costume. Now all is left is to do the alterations that make it perfectly adjusted for their body, photograph them in the wardrobe to send over for approval from the director or producer, make tags and notes for scene numbers and voila, we have a costume!

If the actor turns to me and says “i didn’t really find the character until I put on this costume”, you will find me beaming from ear to ear, as I have done my job.