Dorothy Jeakins

Dorothy Jeakins

Known For: Costume & Make-Up

Date Of Birth:1914-01-11

Place Of Birth:San Diego, California, USA

Dorothy Jeakins (January 11, 1914 – November 21, 1995) was an American costume designer. Born in San Diego, California, she attended public school in Los Angeles from first grade through high school. As a senior at Fairfax High School, she was offered a scholarship to study at the Otis Art Institute (now known as Otis College of Art and Design). She also attended the Art Students League of Los Angeles, under Stanton Macdonald-Wright. She was later awarded an Honorary Doctorate from Otis College in 1987. Jeakins worked on WPA projects and as a Disney artist in the 1930s. Her fashion career began as a designer at I. Magnin's, where she was spotted by director Victor Fleming. Hired as a sketch artist for Joan of Arc (1948), Jeakins worked on the costumes with Barbara Karinska and shared an Oscar with her in the color category. This was the first Oscar ever awarded for costumes outside the black and white category. Jeakins was unusual in that she freelanced, never signing a long-term contract with any one studio. She worked steadily for the next thirty-nine years, winning another two Oscars, for Samson and Delilah (1949, shared with Edith Head and others), The Night of the Iguana (1964), and another 12 nominations. She designed period costumes for The Ten Commandments (1956), The Music Man (1962), The Sound of Music (1965), Little Big Man (1970), The Way We Were (1973), Young Frankenstein (1974) and The Dead (1987). Her modern dress excursions included Niagara (1953), Three Coins in the Fountain (1954), South Pacific (1958), and On Golden Pond (1981). Jeakins also worked on stage productions, including South Pacific (in which Motley was the principal costume designer), King Lear, Winesburg, Ohio, and The World of Suzie Wong (for which she received her third Tony nomination), and such television productions as the 1957 production of Annie Get Your Gun, and Mayerling. For ten years beginning in 1953, she served as designer for the Los Angeles Civic Light Opera. In 1961 she was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship to study in Japan. She spent a year there, studying theater costume. From 1967 to 1970, Ms. Jeakins was Curator of Costumes and Textiles at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. In 1987, she was awarded the Women in Film Crystal Award for outstanding women who, through their endurance and excellence of their work, have helped to expand women's roles within the entertainment industry. Jeakins, who retired in 1990, once summed up her designing: "I can put my world down to two words: Make beauty. It's my cue and my private passion."

Images

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Castings

Reflections in a Golden Eye
Young Frankenstein
Desire Under the Elms
Fuzz
The Best Man
The Sound of Music
Green Mansions
Belles on Their Toes
Les Miserables
The Outcasts of Poker Flat
White Witch Doctor
The Betsy
The Postman Always Rings Twice
Samson and Delilah
Beneath the 12-Mile Reef
The Stalking Moon
The Way We Were
Love and Bullets
Cyrano de Bergerac
Annie Get Your Gun
The Molly Maguires
Audrey Rose
The Night of the Iguana
On Golden Pond
The Savage Is Loose
City of Bad Men
Ensign Pulver
Joan of Arc
Niagara
North Dallas Forty
Fat City
Three Coins in the Fountain
The Hindenburg
I Will, I Will...For Now
Friendly Persuasion
South Pacific
The Flim-Flam Man
Inferno
The Unforgiven
The Ten Commandments
Let's Make Love
The Fool Killer
Treasure of the Golden Condor
My Cousin Rachel
All Fall Down
The Music Man
Stars and Stripes Forever
Hawaii
True Grit
The Yakuza
Finian's Rainbow
The Dead
The Big Sky
The Fixer
The Children's Hour
Mayerling
The Greatest Show on Earth
Elmer Gantry
Any Wednesday