Edith Head

Edith Claire Head (; October 28, 1897 – October 24, 1981) was an American film costume designer. She received a record 35 nominations for the Academy Award for Best Costume Design and won a record eight times, making her both the most honored and most nominated woman in the Academy's history. She also holds the Guinness World Record for most-credited costume designer in film history, with a total of 432 credits. After taking courses at the Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles,

Outside of film, Head was commissioned to design the official women's uniform for the United States Coast Guard in the 1970s, due to the increasing number of women in the Coast Guard, for which she received the Meritorious Public Service Award. Her obituary in the Los Angeles Times notes: the daughter of Ashkenazi Jewish parents, Anna E. (nee Levy) and Max Posener, both of German-Jewish and Austrian-Jewish ancestry. Her father was a naturalized American citizen from Germany who came to the United States in 1876 at age eighteen, while her American mother was born in St. Louis, Missouri in 1875, the daughter of an Austrian-Jewish father and a Bavarian mother. Shortly before Head's birth, her father opened a small haberdashery in San Bernardino. The business failed within a year, after which he abandoned the family and relocated to El Paso, Texas.

In 1901, Head's mother Anna married Frank Spare, a mining engineer from Pennsylvania. Anna and Frank passed Edith off as their biological child, giving her his surname, and raised her in his Roman Catholic faith. Due to her stepfather's job, the family moved frequently during her childhood to various mining camps, with a significant portion spent in rural Searchlight, Nevada. A shy and introverted only child, Head often spent time building makeshift dollhouses out of cardboard boxes, and creating figures out of greasewood that naturally grew in the desert. She would also create costumes for animals, including her pet dog and cat, as well as wild horned lizards. "I had no other children for playmates," she recalled. "Naturally, all of my intensive imagination in child's play had to be connected to activities I could pursue alone." Head was teased by classmates due to her front teeth never growing in properly, and because of this, rarely smiled.

She completed her elementary school education in Redding, California in 1911, before the family lived for a period in Mexico, where Head learned to speak Spanish. Head and her mother subsequently relocated to Los Angeles, where she graduated from Los Angeles High School.

Head enrolled at the University of California, Berkeley in 1915, and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in letters and sciences with honors in French. She subsequently enrolled at Stanford University, where she earned a Master of Arts degree in romance languages in 1920. She became a language teacher with her first position as a replacement at The Bishop's School in La Jolla teaching French and Spanish. Due to Charles's drinking problem and her reduced teaching salary during the summer months, Head began seeking work as a sketch artist to help supplement their income. Head and other film designers like Adrian became well known to the public.

Head was known for her particular working style and, unlike many of her male contemporaries, usually consulted extensively with the female stars with whom she worked. As a result, she was a favorite among many of the leading female stars of the 1940s and 1950s, such as Ginger Rogers, Bette Davis, Barbara Stanwyck, Jane Wyman, Rita Hayworth, Shirley MacLaine, Grace Kelly, Audrey Hepburn, and Elizabeth Taylor. In fact, Head was frequently "loaned out" by Paramount to other studios at the request of their female stars. She herself always dressed plainly, preferring thick-framed glasses and conservative two-piece suits.

In 1946, Head worked for the first time with director Alfred Hitchcock on his spy film Notorious. Head was loaned from Paramount to Radio-Keith-Orpheum (RKO) pictures to work with Hitchcock on this film, at the request of actress Ingrid Bergman. At this time it was usual for costume designers to reflect their own style. Head had a different outlook on this, thinking that it was more important to design pieces that reflected the character. During their time working on Notorious, Head and Hitchcock found that they were like-minded and had the same bluntness in their careers and attitudes. The costumes she designed for this film reflected restraint and the need to blend in. This style suited what Hitchcock was looking for, since he did not want the clothes to be the focal point. The two went on to work together many more times.

On February 3, 1955 (Season 5 Episode 21), Head appeared as a contestant on the Groucho Marx quiz show You Bet Your Life. She and her partner won a total of $1,540. Her winnings were donated to charity.

Head wrote two books describing her career and design philosophy, The Dress Doctor (1959) and How To Dress For Success (1967). These books were re-edited in 2008 and 2011, respectively.

1968–1981: Universal Pictures In 1968, at the age of 70, Head left Paramount Pictures and was contracted with Universal Pictures, where she remained until her death in 1981. By this point, Hollywood was rapidly changing from what it had been during Head's heyday in the 1930s-1940s. Studio-based production was giving way to outdoors and on-scene shooting, and many of the actresses from that era whom she worked with and knew intimately had retired or were working less. She thus turned more of her attention to TV, where some old friends such as Olivia de Havilland had begun working. She made a cameo appearance in 1973 on the detective series Columbo beside Anne Baxter, playing herself and displaying her Oscars to date. In 1974, Head received a final Oscar win for her work on The Sting (1973). Her designs for a TV mini-series based on the novel Little Women were well received. She also designed the costumes for Elizabeth Taylor in the Hallmark Hall of Fame segment "Return Engagement" (1978).

Her last film project was the black-and-white comedy Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid (1982), starring Steve Martin and Carl Reiner, a job Head was chosen for because of her expertise on 1940s fashions. She modeled Martin and Reiner's outfits on classic film noir and the movie, released in theaters just after her death, was dedicated to her memory.

Design style Unlike most other designers of her time, Head never undertook couture or wholesale fashion work, opting to "work only in the context of a certain actress in a certain film." Olivia de Havilland, whose costumes were designed by Head for the films To Each His Own (1946) and The Heiress (1949), said: "Every dress was perfect. Just putting them on, I became these women and I knew right where they were in the stories. Edith even came to New York with me before The Heiress and we studied the underwear at the Brooklyn Museum so it would be absolutely authentic."

Head herself regarded her work as apart from the world of fashion design, and did not consider herself a fashion designer. Commenting in 1978 on her view of her profession, she said: quote|I think that most people don't realize motion pictures are not "fashion." So many people say to me, "Isn't it lovely to be a fashion designer and dress these beautiful stars?" That is not what happens. I get a script, and the script says, "In this film, Grace Kelly is playing a princess, she's beautiful, and she has fabulous clothes." The next script says, "Grace Kelly is a middle-aged, dowdy housewife"... so you do dowdy clothes. I can do tacky clothes, dowdy clothes, sexy clothes, horrible clothes... anything the world should want—male, female, or animals... Costume design is like theater. Costume design is to tell a story. It has nothing to do with fashion at all, unless it is a fashion picture. through her later life. on October 24, 1981.

A private funeral mass was held at Good Shepherd Catholic Church in Beverly Hills, where actress Bette Davis gave a brief eulogy. Also in attendance were Elizabeth Taylor, Janet Leigh, Ann Sothern, George Peppard, Loretta Young, Jane Wyman, and Lew Wasserman. She is interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California.

Legacy Head holds the distinction of being the most-credited costume designer in history, with a total of 432 film credits to her name.

Over the course of her career, she was nominated for a total of 35 Academy Awards, annually from 1949 (the first year that the Oscar for Best Costume Design was awarded) through 1966, and won eight times—receiving more Oscars than any other woman.

Head's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, which she received in 1974, is located at 6504 Hollywood Boulevard.

Filmography As a costume designer, Head has a total of 432 credits to her name.

Ball of Fire

Flesh and Fantasy

Masquerade in Mexico

Christmas in Connecticut

My Reputation

My Friend Irma Diana Lynn

Sunset Boulevard

Payment on Demand

Road to Bali

Houdini

Those Redheads from Seattle

Roman Holiday

Sabrina

Elephant Walk

Rear Window

Artists and Models

Lucy Gallant

Three Violent People

Witness for the Prosecution

Funny Face

Separate Tables

Sex and the Single Girl

This Property Is Condemned

Topaz

Myra Breckinridge

Ash Wednesday

Uncredited

Rooster Cogburn

Gable and Lombard

Family Plot

W. C. Fields and Me

Screen appearances Year Title Role Notes 1955 Lucy Gallant Herself 1961 Dress designer Uncredited 1966 Herself 1973 Columbo Herself Episode: "Requiem for a Falling Star"

Accolades Head received eight Academy Awards for Best Costume Design, more than any other person, from a total of 35 nominations.

Institution Year Category Nominated work Outcome Academy Awards 1949 Best Costume Design – Color 1950 Best Costume Design – Black & White 1951 All About Eve Best Costume Design – Color Samson and Delilah 1952 Best Costume Design – Black & White 1953 Carrie Best Costume Design – Color 1954 Best Costume Design – Black & White Roman Holiday 1955 Sabrina 1956 Best Costume Design – Color To Catch a Thief 1957 Best Costume Design – Black & White Best Costume Design – Color 1958 Best Costume Design Funny Face 1959 1960 Best Costume Design – Black & White Career Best Costume Design – Color 1961 Best Costume Design – Black & White Best Costume Design – Color Pepe 1962 Pocketful of Miracles 1963 Costume Design – Black & White Best Costume Design – Color My Geisha 1964 Best Costume Design – Black & White Love with the Proper Stranger Wives and Lovers Best Costume Design – Color 1965 Best Costume Design – Black & White Best Costume Design – Color What a Way to Go! 1966 Best Costume Design – Black & White Best Costume Design – Color Inside Daisy Clover 1967 1970 Best Costume Design Sweet Charity 1971 Airport 1974 1976 1978 Airport '77 British Academy Film Awards 1976 Best Costume Design Costume Designers Guild Awards 1999 Hall of Fame