After a Fashion
by Thomas Delapa
In today’s
dressed-down, flip-flops and uber-casual
world, we seldom hear that “clothes make the man” anymore. But in classic
Hollywood, fashion not only made the man—and the woman—but it made the movies
too.
Where would The
Wizard of Oz’s Dorothy Gale be without her ruby slippers, Joan Crawford sans her shoulder pads, Marilyn Monroe
less (ahem) her skin-tight gowns or Cary Grant minus those impeccably tailored
suits?
Like other
low-profile collaborators, especially in our grandiose age of the director as auteur,
motion-picture costume directors rarely grab the spotlight and even less the
microphone. Classic film fans may be familiar with the celebrated career of
Edith Head, but otherwise public knowledge of Hollywood’s leading costume
designers is skimpy if not threadbare.
Despite its
odd-fitting title, Women He’s Undressed means to makeover that legacy,
taking the measure of Australian-born Orry-Kelly, who for three decades was one
of Hollywood’s larger-than-life, A-list designers. His career included a long,
tempestuous stint at the Warner Bros. studio, dressing such stars as Bette
Davis, Humphrey Bogart and Olivia de Havilland, and was crowned by three Oscars
for costume design, the last for Some
Like It Hot in 1959.
As a gay man in
Hollywood who rarely hid in the closet—at least among his friends— "Jack" Orry-Kelly was
renowned for his talents, tart tongue and artistic tantrums. He could be
difficult and demanding, but he managed to navigate the treacherous shores of
the studio-system fiefdoms. While most found his boss Jack Warner a
tight-fisted, crass (and macho) tyrant, Orry-Kelly formed an uneasy alliance,
smoothed over by his long friendship with Warner’s wife, Ann. Undoubtedly his
most famous work was with the notoriously prickly Bette Davis, including the
brazen “red” ball dress her character flitted about in the 1938’s
black-and-white Jezebel.
Except for that
foundering rowboat, Undressed is outfitted in a conventional style,
embroidered with interviews (among them, Jane Fonda and Angela Lansbury),
newsreel footage and photos. But it’s also spangled with fascinating tidbits
about fashion design in Hollywood’s bygone Golden Age. Especially revealing are
the sleight-of-hand tricks Orry-Kelly used to transform diva Davis (she of a
large but “limp” bosom) that showed off the positive while cloaking the
negative.
Glamour,
illusion and fantasy were Orry-Kelly’s stock in trade, but his private life was
bold as brass, despite begin hemmed in by a homophobic culture that threatened
exposure for anyone—especially men—daring to tip-toe out of the closet. Armstrong
and her writer Katherine Thomson sew the villain badge on Englishman Cary Grant
(né Archibald Leach), who turned his back on Orry-Kelly once he became a
matinee idol. While it is now well-known that Grant and Western star Randolph
Scott lived together as roommates and more, the film speciously suggests that
Grant’s subsequent marriages were strictly a cover for his homosexuality.
What’s most
durable in Armstrong’s material is the flamboyant character of Orry-Kelly as
both artist and survivor. Fired from Warners in 1944, he hit the bottle hard,
successfully chased by rehab (“sanatoriums” back then) and surfacing in a wave
of comebacks in the 1950s, culminating in the sparkling triumph of Some Like
It Hot. Not only did he outfit Marilyn Monroe in those diaphanous,
barely-there gowns that seared the screen, but he also dragged cross-dressing
Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis into hilarious movie history.
Orry-Kelly
was
also a brash and oft-catty wit who was loath to keep his mouth zipped—he
famously quipped that “Hell must be filled with beautiful women and no
mirrors.” In old Hollywood’s bright firmament, you can still see
Orry-Kelly’s
twinkling reflection in the timelessly elegant fashions he created.
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8/5/16
