Phyllis Dalton, the revered British fashion designer who created Peter O’Toole’s famous white desert cape for David Lean. Lawrence of Arabia She won Oscars 24 years apart for her work in Lean’s Doctor Zhivago And Kenneth Branagh henry fHe died. It was 99.
Dalton died Thursday Telegraph I mentioned. No other details were immediately available.
During a career spanning more than 50 years, Dalton also received an Academy Award and BAFTA nomination for Best Victorian Film for director Carol Reed. Oliver! (1968); Won a BAFTA award for The paid one (1973), set in the post-World War I period; She won an Emmy Award for Clive Donner’s 1982 television movie Scarlet Pimpernelwhich takes place in the midst of the French Revolution.
She started out as a wardrobe assistant at Laurence Olivier henry f (1944) and received her first costume design by Richard Todd and Glynis Jones Rob Roy: Highland Rogue (1953). She even assisted the legendary Edith Head in the Alfred Hitchcock film The man who knew too much (1956).
Dalton received praise for Rob Reiner’s swashbuckling costume The princess bride (1987) and co-starred three times with director Kenneth Branagh (she also co-starred opposite then-wife Emma Thompson) in henry f (1989), a neo-noir thriller Dead again (1991) and romantic comedy Much ado about nothing (1993), her last screen credit.
During a 2012 BAFTA tribute to her, it was humorously noted that she had dressed armies of on-screen stars – “the Red Army, the British Army, the American Army, the Cossacks, the Nazis, the Afghans, the Knights of the Round Table”. – Twice – Jacobins and Jacobins…”
Dalton wasn’t even nominated for her most famous work, the elaborate military costumes and Arab clothing she designed for her. Lawrence of Arabia (1962).
The film received 10 Academy Award nominations and won for Best Picture, Director, Cinematographer (Freddie Young), Art Direction (John Box, John Stoll, Dario Simone), Sound (John Cox), Editing (Anne V. Coates) and Original Score. (Maurice Jarre).
In a letter, Lin wrote to her expressing his disappointment at the lack of recognition: “I blame Columbia and… [producer] Sam [Spiegel] For not being nominated one way or another for your amazing work. You did it so beautifully that I think they failed to realize that every costume was original by you.
Peter O’Toole in the 1962 film Lawrence of Arabia.
Courtesy Everett Collection
To prepare for the epic, Dalton studied T. E. Lawrence’s photographs at the Imperial War Museum in London and analyzed Eric Kennington’s pastel illustrations in his book. The Seven Pillars of Wisdomfirst published in 1926.
The perfectionist even tracked down Lawrence’s commander’s original tailor, General Edmund Allenby, who was then working in a clothing shop in London.
When it came to designing Officer O’Toole’s uniform, Dalton deliberately made it ill-fitting, running it through the washing machine to shrink it, wrinkle it, and make his pants too short.
“It was very important, because he told you right away that he was inappropriate,” she said in the film’s introduction. Making a documentary.
Her design for O’Toole’s full-length costume included a desert robe with gold brocade trim, a long silk shirt (created in London and embroidered with a white silk pattern in Damascus), a soft cream wool keffiyeh with ivory wool and a gilt headband.
She brilliantly reflects Lawrence’s mental and moral decline through the film by making his clothes progressively thinner and dirtier.
Dalton, who was resourceful, said she would order twenty silk shirts to ensure that at least six of them arrived to her liking, as Damascene tailors would often try to improve their decorations without her permission.
The only costume in the film that was completely fictional was Anthony Quinn’s (Apo Tay Returns) black and blue cape, which Dalton felt looked great against the desert backdrop. “I think that was the only bit of self-indulgence,” she said.
She even dressed hundreds of Arabs who appeared on screen. “A lot of people think that all the Arabs wore their own clothes, but that was another case of us being 10 identical clothes for everyone, for all the Arabs, and they’re all in the Lawrence gang, anyway.” Interview 2000.
Phyllis Margaret Dalton was born on October 16, 1925 in Chiswick, England. Her father worked for the Great Western Railway, and her mother worked in a bank. As a child, she was fascinated by drawing clothes and learning about how people in the past dressed and the fabrics they used.
At Ealing College of Art, she studied fashion design, then got work as an assistant to costume designer Matilda Etches in her Soho workroom, where she made clothes for dancers Margot Fonteyn and Pamela May, and actresses Ivy St Hilaire, Renée Ascherson and Olivier Henri V.
During World War II, she joined the Women’s Royal Naval Service and served at the code-breaking facility at Bletchley Park.
Phyllis Dalton adjusts Richard Todd’s kilt as he looks at her drawings of his costume on the set of the 1953 film Rob Roy: The Highland Rogue.
Courtesy Everett Collection
Her big break came when her aunt brought her into a room Vogue magazine A talent competition and her work caught the attention of editor Audrey Withers, who introduced her to designer Yvonne Cavin at Gainsborough Studios.
I started out as her assistant in buying ready-made clothes for her Hoggets series of films before moving to Twickenham Studios and getting her first film credit as a wardrobe supervisor in Robert Montgomery’s 1950 courtroom drama eyewitness.
was on Rob Roy Three years later, she found her feet artistically, using color to create mood and character with “all those beautiful plant-dyed patterns,” she told BBC Magazine. Sunday Telegraph In 1990.
In a remake by Hitchcock The man who knew too much“He was very deadpan, and he would tell you terrible things about these people in the text and you weren’t quite sure whether you believed him or not, whether he was serious or not,” she said.
Her Oscar-nominated work in the musical Oliver! She said it was made easier by Charles Dickens’s vivid descriptions of his characters and locations in his 1838 novel. Oliver Twist.
Across five dozen films and television credits, Dalton has crafted an eclectic roster of stars – James Mason (1965) Lord Jim), Anthony Hopkins (1982 The Hunchback of Notre Dame), Noel Coward and Maureen O’Hara (1959 Our man in Havana), Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. (1986). Strong medicine), Joan Fontaine and Dorothy Dandridge (1957 Island in the sun), Charlton Heston (1980s Awakening) and even Andre the Giant (The princess bride).
The princess brideOf course, it starred Cary Elwes as Farmer Westley, who rescues his true love, Princess Buttercup (Robin Wright), from Prince Humperdinck (Chris Sarandon). When Dalton first read the script, she thought it was “full of garbage.”
But in his 2014 memoirs As you wishElwes recalled how her fashion sketches immediately “established the tone and feel”. [William] Goldman’s book. The colors, textures and look of the materials were beyond what I could have imagined.
After outfitting Elwes in his character’s signature black costume of suede pants, leather boots, belt, ruffled shirt, gloves and mask, she still felt like the costume wasn’t complete.
“Then I called her assistant and asked her to bring me some black satin,” Elwes wrote. “When the assistant returned with the materials, Phyllis tied one piece around my head and another around my waist like a scarf. ‘This is better!’ she said.
Not to be outdone, she modified a shoe to protect Eloise’s broken toe, not while filming, but while he was driving Andre the Giant’s all-terrain vehicle during some of the time.
Moviegoers to this day flock to the gorgeous pale pink suit and delicate pink marabou she designed for Geraldine Chaplin for her first appearance at a Moscow train station in Doctor Zhivago (1965).
Dalton’s initial sketch was more complex—a fluffy black hat and a very tight-fitting pearl gray uniform—but Lane pulled it off.
Two days before shooting, Chaplin’s prom dress, contained in a box that also contained Rod Steiger’s pants, went missing at London (now Heathrow) Airport. Dalton described it as “one of the worst things that has ever happened, don’t expect this”. Another dress was made overnight and shipped from Madrid.
Phyllis Dalton’s drawings of the costume of Yuri Zhivago, played by Omar Sharif, and Lara Antipova, who played Julie Christie in the 1965 film “Doctor Zhivago.”
Courtesy Everett Collection (2)
Over a period of 15 months, she created over 5,000 costumes for doctor zhivago, Including dozens of basic soldier uniform designs, which she then customized with tears and tears.
“It’s not really unusual for women to design men’s clothing,” she told The New York Times. San Francisco Examiner Before the movie was released. “In fact, it takes a feminine woman to know what a masculine man should look like.”
Surprisingly, throughout her career, it was the Russian soldier’s uniform that pleased Dalton the most. “Anyone can make a smart dress,” she said. In her BAFTA tribute programme.
“It is very difficult to make people from the past who are dressed in ordinary clothes look real. So I think I was more proud of this soldier than anything else.”
She retired in 1993 and was awarded an MBE in 2002 for services to the film industry. Survivors include her second husband, Christopher;
In her attention to detail, Dalton used the example of “putting clay in the right place” to illustrate the precision of her craft.
“You have to think about the true color of the clay, and place it where it happened. You have to match your soldiers to the clay – or your Arabs will desert, as in Lawrence of Arabia. Deserts are not all yellow. “I didn’t know that until I went to Jordan.”
It was serendipity that led Dalton to land the coveted fashion designer job Lawrence of Arabia.
Neither the wardrobe master nor the production designer (Box) was available for Albert Finney’s unsuccessful screen test of the title character. Production manager John Palmer remembers Dalton from his time working there Island in the sun He advised her to be lean.
Dalton entered into what she called “a production in itself that would last for several days” and was soon offered the position of costume designer for a two-year shoot by Spiegel.
In Natasha Fraser-Cavasoni’s 2003 biography of Spiegel, Dalton said the producer was “an absolute monster, but he had a tremendous amount of charm.” …He’d had a party or two on his boat, but when he’d had enough, he’d stand on the plank with a watch in his hand.
when Lawrence The running time was brought back to the original 228 minutes as part of the 1988 director’s cut, and Dalton watched in amazement at the scene she helped create.
She said: “I sat there and couldn’t believe we had actually done it, because it was hard work at the time, and it’s a great film, you know. One should be very proud of that, really, but I can’t believe I did it, because I didn’t come From nothing. Where did she come from?
