Happy Birthday to Academy Award-Winning Costume Designer Edith Head
Costume designer Edith Head was born October 28, 1897, and over the course of a six-decade career worked on over 1,000 films and won eight Academy Awards — holding the record for most Oscars won by a woman.
Born in San Bernardino, California, Edith moved around in her early life due to her step-father’s job as a mining engineer. She graduated from Los Angeles High School and went on to attend the University of California, Berkeley. After graduating from Berkeley, she attended Stanford University receiving a Master of Arts degree in 1920.
After graduation, Edith began working as a language teacher before she began her career in Hollywood working as a sketch artist at Paramount Studios in 1923. Prior to taking the job, Edith had very little experience in art but soon began sketching costumes for silent films. This job began her 44 year career at the studio where she was named chief designer in 1938. In 1948, Edith and other costume designers convinced the Oscars to create a category for Best Costume Design and in 1949, Edith received her very first Academy Award nomination in the category for The Emperor Waltz. But she didn’t win her first Oscar until the following year for which she won Best Costume Design for her work on The Heiress.
Over the course of the next 20 years, Edith worked on costumes for some of the most iconic films in history and racked up an astonishing 31 Oscar Nominations by 1970. Edith worked on films such as Carrie (1952), Roman Holiday (1953), Rear Window (1954), Sabrina (1955), Anything Goes (1956), Vertigo (1958), Barefoot in the Park (1967), and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) just to name a few. She also worked with the top leading ladies of classic Hollywood like Ginger Rogers, Grace Kelly, Audrey Hepburn, Bette Davis, and Shirley MacLaine who often requested her to be their designer. Edith consulted extensively with the people she designed for, making her a favorite amongst them.
In 1974, Edith received what would be her final Oscar for The Sting (1973) which was her 8th Academy Award, setting the record for the most Oscars won by a woman. She still holds that record to this day. In the late 1970s, she helped design the women’s uniform for the United States Coast Guard for which she received a Meritorious Public Service Award. Edith also wrote two books on design and has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in honor of her amazing career.
“There’s no such thing as a standard size movie star, or woman for that matter.” — Edith Head
Edith Head died of a bone marrow disease just a few days before her 84th birthday on October 24, 1981. Her long career in Hollywood impacted the design world and she will forever be one of the most influential women in film. Thank you, Edith, for blazing a trail that so many follow to this day.
