Photo credit: Courtesy of the author
“I started as an actor when I was six years old. It’s in my blood. I was dancing on stage & singing and I moved on from that & acted in films and theater for a long time & got terribly interested in costumes when I was studying at the University of Paris. I was studying history, but I never actually remembered what anybody did at the time but I always remember what they wore,” costume designer Jean-Pierre Dorléac told Hollywood on the Potomac. “I was very interested in art and was very interested in writing and reading. I have sketches of mine that I did at the precocious age of six that were full detail. One of them is like a cowgirl similar to what Annie Oakley was at the time with fringed vest and six-shooters and the ten-gallon hat…….all of six years old. Apparently this was something innate.” His book The Naked Truth: Hollywood’s Secrets Unveiled will be released on May 3, 2015.
Jean-Pierre Dorléac is a French costume designer who has worked in both television and film. He was nominated at the 53rd Academy Awards in the category of Best Costumes for his work on the film Somewhere in Time. Additionally, he was nominated for eleven Emmy Awards, winning twice for Battlestar: Galactica and The Lot.
We were curious as to why a Frenchman who lived in the most fashion conscious city in the world would choose to move elsewhere: “Because I had no interest in fashion whatsoever. Even to this day I don’t. Even when I do contemporary work for all my private clientele I never look at Vogue or Harper’s Bazaar, anything. I don’t believe in riding on other people’s coattails, especially other people’s designs and they don’t interest me. I have no idea who the major fashion designers of today are. I never have known who they are and really don’t care because my interest comes from what I do, which is not the same as fashion design.”
“Fashion design and couture and ready-to-wear are entirely different beasts,” he further explained. “Matter of fact, it’s one of the reasons I wrote this book because nobody seems to know the difference and many times I’m introduced by very well-known producers as ‘This is my fashion stylist.’ Well, I’m not a fashion stylist. A fashion stylist is entirely different from a costume designer. I felt that it was time that somebody wrote a book about actually being on the front lines, in the trenches of what costume designing was about because it’s never been done before. Edith Head wrote two or three books but it was mostly about celebrities and my book is nothing like that at all although there’s lots of conversations……very funny, wonderful conversations with well-known people like Fred Astaire and Henry Fonda, Patricia Neal, Eleanor Parker, Gene Simmons and Roddy McDowall who was one of my closest friends for over thirty years.”
“That’s all in the book, but behind it all is what the true story about how a picture comes together with production values and casting and all the various input that goes into making the costumes that you see on the screen. People think that costume designing is waving a wand and going ‘Oh, pink dress’ and it suddenly materializes, but it is far more than that: It’s hours and hours of research on fabrics and accessories and trims and how to get the outfit to really make the actor or actress look superb. Couture ready-to-wear are clothes that are made for millions of people in different sizes. Nobody takes into mind if it’s going to enhance the body in any way or not. Costume design is exactly that. We are concerned with transforming a person into the character they’re playing.”
Dear Edith (Edith Head) told me many times that we should never have been called costume designers, we should have been called costume magicians.” Edith Head was an American costume designer who won a record eight Academy Awards for Best Costume Design, starting with The Heiress and ending with The Sting. “Why she ever took an interest in me, I have no idea, but she loved me dearly. She had been a French teacher at one time. Her passion in life was lewd French jokes and because I spoke French, she would come and see me and tell me the naughtiest jokes ever and then we would chuckle and laugh in secret. Then she would put on her schoolmarm demeanor and go out and address the public like she normally did. Behind the façade, she was a dear, warmhearted, thoughtful and caring person.”
How frequently do others steal your ideas or take credit for them as they did with Edith Head’s Audrey Hepburn designs. Does that happen frequently and do you care? “Every single time you do something. When I did Battlestar Galactica and created the Cylons everybody who had a tiny hand in the deal was like, ‘Oh, I’ll spray paint the buckle’ and they all came out of the woodwork and took credit for designing the costumes. It’s true, and as Edith said, she didn’t really care because couture’s been stealing from costume designers for centuries.”
“I was born an American citizen in Europe. My dad had been working in the business since I was six years old. My family is very well-accredited. I came to the United States numerous times and knew numerous people and I was asked to come to do the West Coast premiere of Marquis de Sade and I won the Drama Critics Award for it and things took off like wildfire thereafter.”
Hollywood on the Potomac tossed out some names of actors he worked with to get a spontaneous reaction. Henry Fonda: “Absolutely the most professional, sincere, wonderful actor. Salt of the earth.” Gary Grant: Cary Grant was very, very, very funny, just like you thought he would be. Matter of fact, I ran into him accidentally at the Magic Castle here in Hollywood. I had gone to a Houdini séance and I was dressed in turn-of-the-century costume and he stopped me at the bar and complimented me and asked me what I was doing and I told him that I was at a séance and he said ‘Did you make any connection?’ and I said no and he said ‘Yes, me neither, sort of like calling Paris, isn’t it?’ ” Patricia Neal: The most courageous, wonderful woman in the world who went through so much strife in life.”
“The second reason why I wrote this book,” he added, “was mainly because I work with numerous support youth-recovery organizations and there’s so many terrible stories about the youth of today who are so distressed and unhappy and can’t seem to deal with life and they do such awful things like throw themselves off bridges in front of trucks and things like that. It’s so sad that they have no self-awareness and they don’t realize that it takes a lot of determination and a lot of fortitude to get through the business and you have to constantly keep pushing yourself and going forward whether you don’t feel like you’re going anywhere or not. Just like Patricia Neal did with all of the accidents she had. Her stroke, her son being hit by a pram, by a bus and her daughter dying at the age of seven.
She had a very rough life, but she was the most wonderful, uplifting, charming person you could ever met and that I had ever met. She was the most interesting woman I ever knew. She had a very hard time remembering because of her stroke and I used to help her with her lines, in addition to having dressed her. We became friends and I would help her with pronunciations if she wanted a country French accent, which was very easy for me, and I would help her with those things and we would get into conversations and we started talking about people and she couldn’t remember names of actors she worked with. That’s how bad the stroke had affected her. We played charades and it took us half an hour one time to guess a name of this actor who she adored and with whom she had worked. She was truly an inspiration in life.”
Mae West: “Mae West…..well you know that I did Mae West’s life story on TV. I had met her at the premiere of Sextette, the last movie she made and Edith had designed all of Mae’s clothes in many films of the past. It’s a very famous picture of Every Day’s A Holiday, I believe it was, in which Mae wore this dress that had doves flying across the front of it in silver. A black dress. They only wore black and white, wore no other colors ever. Edith told me, way before I did the film because I did it after Edith died, that she had placed the dove on the dress flying west because of Mae West, which was a wonderful tribute to her. Mae West was one of the greatest characters of all time.
Lana Turner: “Well, Lana Turner is a subject we’re really not going into right now. Your audience will have to read the book because it’s hysterical. So let’s just skip Lana Turner and we’ll keep it as a big surprise.”
Let me just have you walk through what you do. What is the process? Somebody comes to you, you go to them? How do you get involved in preparing for what you do? “I’m hired by my abilities and my credits, for the most part. Every project is entirely different. It all has to do with whether it’s theater or film or television. They all operate on a different schedule. On television, you design an awful lot through the director and the producer predominantly in television. If the producer is running the ship, the director is generally a gun-for-hire and has come in to either direct the pilot or one of the episodes in the series. Therefore, it’s the producers who have the final say in anything. A lot of costumes are designed for television, especially if they’re manufactured – made-to-order, M.O. is what they’re called.”
“With the actors sometimes, because of network desires and input and so forth, there’s a lot of bickering or arguing or compromising is a better word – back and forth between the line producers and the network executives as to who’s going to star in the show; and many times I have had actors who are going to work at six o’clock the next morning who are cast at six o’clock at night and they live in New York,” Jean-Pierre explained. “They have to fly overnight to New York and come in to see me at three o’clock in the morning, go through a fitting, have enough time for tailor shop to do the alterations and then get them on the set by six o’clock, put them in hair and makeup, dress them and have them in front of the camera by seven o’clock. All the costumes are made beforehand. Sometimes in films it’s the same way. Most of the time not, but there’s a time you have actors who are hired who come with the project or bring money to the project who are executive producers of one sort or another.”
“At that point they are somewhat included, although usually by then it’s more like the directors make the decision because it’s his vehicle. A motion picture is really a vehicle for the director more than anybody else. I do all my sketches and work with the director beforehand and they’re all approved, the fabrics are approved. Then when the actors come in they’re just there, shown the sketches and the fabric and unless there’s something absolutely terribly wrong, like they can’t wear wool or something like that, or allergic to it, then the costumes are made. Actors rarely have an input into their costumes whatsoever. On stage, it is another terribly different thing. The stage is where everything is done at the very beginning. The costume designer and the director and the producer and the scenic designer, set designer, lighting designer, we all meet at the very beginning along with the cast because the cast is in rehearsal. There’s a lot of talk and back and forth and the costumes are designed more as a collaboration in theater than they are in anything else,” he explained.
Your Bucket List? “I have traveled the world, I have been all over the place. I’ve done practically every kind of period costume. I’ve done every period from the 15th century all the way up. I have done every single year of the 20th century on film or on television. Matter of fact, I have done 1938 four times, more-so than any other period. I really don’t have great thoughts about anything else. I lead a very wonderful life. I have a very fabulous house in Los Angeles and two out of the country – places where I travel a lot. I spend most of my time now with my couture clients and I just got to doing some costumes for carnival in Rio. I don’t do motion pictures or television anymore at all. I left that years ago and I never have looked back with any regrets. As Edith Piaf said, je ne regrette rien.”
