Designer edith head biography
Edith Head
American costume designer (1897–1981)
Edith Head | |
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Edith Head in 1976 | |
| Born | Edith Claire Posenor (1897-10-28)October 28, 1897 San Bernardino, California, U.S. |
| Died | October 24, 1981(1981-10-24) (aged 83) Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
| Resting place | Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale, California |
| Alma mater | University of California, Berkeley(B.A., 1919) Stanford University(M.A., 1920) |
| Occupation | Costume Designer |
| Years active | 1924–1981 |
| Known for | Costume Designer at Paramount Pictures and Universal Pictures |
| Spouses | Charles Head (m. 1923; div. 1938)Wiard Ihnen (m. 1940; died 1979) |
| Awards | Academy Award for Best Costume Design x 8 |
Edith Claire Head (née Posenor, October 28, 1897 – October 24, 1981) was an American film costume designer who won a record eight Academy Awards for Best Costume Design between 1949 and 1973, making her the most awarded woman in the Academy's history. Head is considered to be one of the greatest and most influential costume designers in film history.
Born and raised in California, Head started her career as a Spanish teacher, but was interested in design. After studying at the Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles, Head was hired as a costume sketch artist at Paramount Pictures in 1923. She won acclaim for her design of Dorothy Lamour’s trademark sarong in the 1936 film The Jungle Princess, and became a household name after the Academy Award for Best Costume Design was created in 1948. Head was considered exceptional for her close working relationships with her subjects, with whom she consulted extensively; these included virtually every top female star in Hollywood.
Head worked at Paramount for 44 years. In 1967, the Amy Henderson She referred to her eight Oscars as “my children.” Nominated thirty-five times for the Academy Award for best costume design, Edith Head (1897–1981) was one of the most prolific and certainly one of the most celebrated movie designers from the 1930s to the 1970s. A pioneering woman in decades that encompassed both the heyday and the demise of Hollywood’s highly competitive studio system, Head flourished in that fluctuating atmosphere, proving herself perfectly capable of the kind of ruthlessness, arrogance, and self-promotion necessary for success. But perhaps the key reason Edith Head succeeded was a supreme ability to make herself essential. Born in modest circumstances in San Bernardino, California, she once said of her childhood, “I didn’t have what you would call an artistic or cultural background. We lived in the desert and we had burros and jackrabbits and things like that.” Her initial career was as a Spanish teacher, but she also expressed a strong interest in design and studied at the Chouinard Art School in Los Angeles. In 1923 she answered an ad for “sketch artists” and was hired by Paramount Pictures’ head of costume design, Howard Greer. At the time, Paramount was one of the leading Hollywood studios, with a roster that included such silent-screen stars as Gloria Swanson and Clara Bow. Although Head only viewed these icons from the middle distance, she learned from Greer—and from his successor, Travis Banton—how crucial it was to establish a rapport between star and designer. “You have to have the patience of Job,” she once said. In the studio, surrounded by starlight, she downplayed herself as “little Edith in dark glasses and the beige suit. That’s how I’ve survived.” In 1938 she became chief costume designer at Paramount—the first woman to hold such a lofty position—and always remembered the thirties as her favorite decade, when “the star was a star . . . [and] she wore real fur, real jewels.” Her job was to create fantasy, “to Edith Head was undoubtedly Hollywood’s most famous costume designer, or “magician,” as she liked to call herself. Her career spanned fifty-eight years of movie making. In those years she dressed almost every major star who shone in the industry and, with her straight-cut bangs, dark glasses and tailored suits as her trademark, became more famous than most of them. Just a few weeks before she died, she was still waving at fans as the Universal City Studio Tour stopped at her bungalow. She was born Edith Claire Posener on October 28, 1897 in San Bernadino, California. Her parents soon divorced, her mother remarried, and the young child was given her stepfather’s surname, Spare. She graduated from the University of California at Berkeley and received a Masters Degree in Romance Languages from Stanford University in 1920. Edith Spare taught French and, despite her lack of experience in the subject, art at the Hollywood School for Girls. She enrolled in night classes at Otis Art Institute and Chouinard, where she met and married Charles Head, and became forever Edith Head. When a 1923 classified ad announced a job opening for a sketch artist at Paramount Studios, the resourceful young woman, in need of a summer income, used a borrowed portfolio to win the position that would change the course of her life. She made the transition from sketcher to full-fledged designer in 1933 and set about learning everything she could from her boss, Travis Banton. In 1938, as her first marriage was ending, Edith Head replaced Travis Banton and was suddenly the top designer at one of Hollywood’s biggest studios. She kept the post until 1967 when Paramount was sold and she moved to Universal Studios. In 1940 Edith Head married one of her best friends, Wiard Boppo (Bill) Ihnen, a Paramount set designer. They remained together until his death in 1979, enjoying a very private life in their Hollywood hacienda, Casa Ladera. Hollywood recognized the petite designer in 1974 Edith Head remains one of the most versatile and celebrated costume designers in motion picture history. Born Edith Claire Posener in San Bernardino, California, on October 28, 1897, she adopted her stepfather’s name, Spare, when very young. The family spent her early years in mining towns or on Indian reservations, where her stepfather worked as a mining engineer. She graduated from Los Angeles High School and enrolled at the University of California at Berkeley, majoring in Romance languages. Upon obtaining her A.B. Degree from Berkeley, she entered graduate school at Stanford University, where she earned the degree of Master of Arts in French. Head took a position at the Bishop School for girls in La Jolla, California , where she taught French and Spanish for a semester. She then returned to Los Angeles and took a position teaching French and art with the Hollywood School for Girls. To bolster her knowledge of art, she enrolled in evening classes at Otis Art Institute and Chouniard Art School. During these studies, she met Charles Head, the brother of a Chouniard classmate, whom she married in 1923. Among Head’s students at the Hollywood School were the daughters of famous movie director Cecil B. DeMille. In the summer of 1924, when she tutored the DeMilles to supplement her income, she had opportunities to visit DeMille’s movie sets. About these visits Head says, “I was intrigued,” and by the end of that summer she had answered an ad calling for costume sketch artists. When Howard Greer, then head designer at Paramount, asked for samples of her work, she returned the following day with a portfolio of drawings borrowed from her fellow students at Chouniard. Head remembers, “Howard said he’d never seen so much talent in one portfolio. I got the job.” Though her deception was easily discovered, Greer was amused and began to teach her to sketch. She spent her first months at Paramou
Edith Head
Biography of Edith Head