Orry-Kelly was one of the great Hollywood costume designers of the Golden Age, who designed outstanding wardrobes for contemporary, musical, and historical movies. His film credits span the classic era, and he designed costumes for Bette Davis, Olivia De Havilland, Merle Oberon, Marilyn Monroe, Shirley MacLaine, and Natalie Wood, among many others. His distinctive style was stamped on the early Warner Brothers films, where he gave its leading ladies the panache and chic expected of the 1930s movie stars. His designs for Bette Davis in particular added greatly to her unique persona in films from Jezebel to Now Voyager.
 |
| This stylish Warner Bros. costume sketch by Orry-Kelly was likely done for Kay Francis in the mid-1930s. |
Orry George Kelly was born in Australia, the son of a tailor. Although he studied art and tailoring, he moved to New York as a young man to pursue a career in acting. He became friends and roommates with Archibald Leach, an aspiring actor who soon changed his name to Cary Grant. Orry-Kelly began designing costumes for Broadway, an early training ground for several film costume designers, he then migrated to Hollywood. Cary Grant was helpful in getting Orry-Kelly launched at First National/Warner Brothers in 1932, where Kelly found his calling.
 |
| Above is an Orry-Kelly costume sketch, probably made for Ann Dvorak. |
Orry-Kelly liked to place the design emphasis on the collar and bodice in his early costumes. This was the area that framed the face and where film close-ups accentuated the star's persona. He also like to embellish sleeve cuffs. The long and languid glamour gowns of the 1930s were another specialty of his.
 |
| Orry-Kelly sketch for an unknown film. |
By 1934, Orry-Kelly was designing costumes for over fifty movies a year for Warner Brothers. He rendered his own costume sketches, but he was so overwhelmed with work that he couldn't do the kind of detailed faces he liked on his sketches - so he started painting or drawing his costume sketch figures without heads. He designed several of the Busby Berkeley musicals, along with Milo Anderson, such as 42nd Street and Gold Diggers of 1933.
 |
| An Orry-Kelly sketch for the movie Gold Diggers of 1933 |
The costume sketch above was designed by Orry-Kelly for Helen Vinson. Although the design is for a movie unknown to me, the photo below shows Vinson wearing this beautiful gown.
 |
| Helen Vinson in the Orry-Kelly pink satin gown with black trim. |
 |
| Orry-Kelly shows a gown to Ann Sheridan at Warner Brothers in 1941 |
 |
The photo above is of Dolores Del Rio wearing another stunning Orry-Kelly gown in Wonder Bar, 1934.  Orry Kelly designed the outstanding women's wardrobe for Casablanca, including Ingrid Bergman's costumes. Orry-Kelly left Warner Brothers in 1945 and worked for several different studios. He was one of three costume designers who worked on An American in Paris, along with Walter Plunkett and Irene Sharaff, who together won an Academy Award for Best Costumes. Another significant film he designed for was Auntie Mame, starring Rosalind Russell in 1958. |
PhotofestAnother assignment was for an especially notable film, Billy Wilder's Some Like it Hot, with Marilyn Monroe. The photo above shows Orry-Kelly fitting Marilyn's dress. Marilyn is also shown below in a scene from the movie. The gown is made of nude souffle with streamers of bugle-beads. Orry-Kelly made the most of Marilyn's highlights in this dress.
PhotofestOrry-Kelly was a real wit, a trait he shared with Adrian and Walter Plunkett. He titled his unpublished memoirs, Women I've Undressed. But he also shared the bad habits of Travis Banton, Howard Greer, and some other designers of being a heavy drinker. Mixed with his temperamental nature, this could lead to some difficult situations. Later in his career Shelley Winters refused to come out of her dressing room trailer for a costume fitting. Orry-Kelly rocked the trailer back and forth until the terrified Winters ran out.
One film that Orry-Kelly narrowly missed out on doing was My Fair Lady with Audrey Hepburn. The director George Cukor wanted him for the film and so did Warner Brothers. But Cecil Beaton was specified in Alan Lerner's contract ,so Orry-Kelly lost out. Beaton's costumes for the film have been sanctified by time, but I think Orry-Kelly would have done an even better job.
Orry-Kelly died of liver cancer in 1964 - gone but not forgotten.
Posts
14 comments:
Someone could probably write a whole book on the Bette Davis and Orry-Kelly partnership alone. I'd love to get the full scoop on the Jezebel dress or on her costumes in Now, Voyager.
You may well be right about My Fair Lady. The Beaton costumes are deservedly famous, but I can't help wishing that Audrey Hepburn's two most famous costumes (the Ascot race and the Embassy ball) had been a little less...epic and a little more flattering. Personal taste, I suppose.
Great post, Christian.
Such an interesting and informative post on the designer who worked on two films that were recent blog subjects of mine - "The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex" and "Casablanca."
I'm including a cut-&-paste link to pictures (and a video) of two Orry-Kelly costumes from "Casablanca" (worn by Bergman and Bogart) that were on loan last year from the Warner Bros. Museum for an L.A. area tribute to the studio: http://hollywoodmoviecostumesandprops.blogspot.com/2010/02/original-ingrid-bergman-and-humphrey.html
Thanks to you, Christian, and the Vintage Film Costume Collector I'm becoming more and more interested in costume design (that's a euphemism for "obsessed with").
Thanks for your comment Rachel. There could be a whole book indeed, and I certainly agree with your comment about My Fair Lady. Some of my introductory text got lost in the ether, which I have now replaced, and I did mention by title Jezebel and Now Voyager. These two in particular are where costume really helped define character. I will say this about the Jezebel red ball gown that Orry-Kelly used brown as the color that best looked like red in the black and white film. There is indeed a book's worth of stories about Orry-Kelly. If only his memoirs had been published.
Thanks LadyEve for your comment and link info to the Casablanca costumes. I'm a big fan of Ingrid Bergman's wardrobe in that movie, and of course Elizabeth and Essex was great also. I'm thrilled that you have become a costume afficionado. It gets more and more interesting, since it combines, art, fashion, film character, and a great back-story to all the films. As was said by a French costume designer, "Costume is the second skin of the actor."
Could the sketch for "the unknown film" be for some Joan Crawford vehicle? Look at the face... and I don't know why... the costume looks familiar!
Hi Tertulias. I don't think the unknown costume sketch was for Joan Crawford since Orry-Kelly wasn't designing for her in this period. Thanks for the suggestion
Christian - I think you pin-pointed exactly why costume design has become so fascinating to me - the combination of art, fashion, character and back-story - each of those elements already interests me on its own.
Yes, Lady Eve, a great combination of elements to make the subject fascinating. I think these costume designers from the old studio system would have had some very interesting stories to tell. I know that there is an oral history of Renie at the Academy's Herrick Library - if only we had more.
There is nothing I love more than a Black & White movie, but seeing that sketch of the Helen Vinson dress in pink satin and black makes me pine for whatever movie it was to have been filmed in colour.
Gorgeous sketches and shots. I love his work in "Some Like It Hot." He must have had some fun working with the period and those stars.
Caftan Woman - It's amazing the costume colors never seen in a b&w film - I may have to do a post just on that subject. Thanks for the idea.
Yes, Classicfilmboy. He worked with some of the best and brightest stars. Thanks for the comment
Fascinating mini-bio of a great designer. He was so diverse! From the the gorgous tailored outfit for Ann Dvorak (and does that not look like a Dvorak special?!!) -- to creating that dress of pure sex for Marily Monroe. I think besides those favorites of mine pictured in your article, another favorite is that vision of a gown (and the woma herself) - Dolores Del Rio.
I think Kelly's frustrated reaction to Shelley Winters little tantrum is hilarious. And the name of his book-- this man could design anything, even a great title! Your usual great work, Christian.
(P.S. You really should visit my latest post about a sequence from Fantasia. As a fashion maven,you will love the ballerina outfit picture I show.)
As usual, a beautiful post. Designers like Orry-Kelly and other great Hollywood designers have "fashioned" my fashion sense from before I ever knew where Paris was!
Post a Comment