Ann Roth

Ann Bishop Roth (born October 30, 1931) is an American costume designer. She has received numerous accolades, including two Academy Awards, two BAFTA Awards, and a Tony Award, in addition to nominations for three Emmy Awards. In 2011, she was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame.

Roth gained prominence for her collaborations with directors John Schlesinger, Mike Nichols, Anthony Minghella, and Stephen Daldry. She has been nominated for the Academy Award for Best Costume Design five times, winning two awards for The English Patient (1996) and Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (2020). She has also received four nominations for the BAFTA Award for Best Costume Design, winning for The Day of the Locust (1975) and Ma Rainey's Black Bottom. Roth also makes a cameo appearance in Greta Gerwig's fantasy comedy film Barbie (2023).

Roth's first Hollywood film was 1964's The World of Henry Orient, where her designs included "monogrammed handmade yellow silk pajamas" for glamorous womanizer Peter Sellers.

According to Glenn Frankel, Roth "designed not just costumes but characters" for the 1969 film Midnight Cowboy. Roth found elegant but grimy white pants for Dustin Hoffman's character Ratso Rizzo on street-sale tables in New York City. Because Jon Voight's fringed suede jacket had to "look real and unhip," Roth made it herself. For Brenda Vaccaro's socialite character to wear in a sex scene, Roth paid $200 for a fox-fur jacket owned by one of her neighbors.

Roth as costume designer created a "show-stopping" nightgown for Barbra Streisand to wear in her first non-musical film The Owl and the Pussycat (1970). The short black nightgown featured appliqué pink hands cupping the breasts and, to quote Roth's own description, "a heart on her pee-pee." Roth later re-used her hands-on-breasts design for the 2013 stage play The Nance,

Roth's first Oscar nomination was for 1984's Places in the Heart, set in Depression-era Texas. Roth persuaded Sally Field that, for her "going-into-town-to-ask-for-a-loan-at-the-bank" scenes, a 1930s-type crotchless girdle would help her to walk and sit the right way.

Roth's costumes for three distinct time frames in The English Patient (1996) earned her first Oscar. According to producer Saul Zaentz, Roth worked for half her usual salary on the film "because she believed in the screenplay." Roth's research for the costumes included the British Royal Geographical Society archives and 1930s photos of Egypt by photojournalist Lee Miller. Many of the film's varied military uniforms were authentic from the period; others were copied line-for-line from originals by a Savile Row tailor.

Also in 1996, Roth did costumes for The Birdcage, a comedy film starring Robin Williams and Nathan Lane as the flamboyant owners of a Florida drag club. Talking about his costume, Williams remembered "those ballroom pants and the silk shirts with the shoulder pads. The details were amazing. This was a guy who was still living in the ’70s. The clothes captured exactly who Armand was for me."

In the 2023 film Barbie, Roth appears onscreen in a cameo role, portraying and credited as "the woman on a bench." In the scene, Barbie sits down besides Roth and tells the 91 year-old that she is "so beautiful", and Roth responds with a smile, "I know it." Maureen Dowd in The New York Times described Roth's interaction with Barbie as a "pivotal scene."

Awards and nominations

Academy Awards

Primetime Emmy Awards

Tony Awards