With all the craziness since the beginning of the school year, I completely missed Women out West's third birthday last month! So, thank you for joining me as we continue to honor the talented women who have added such richness to our lives.
Along the way we have explored female painters, sculptors, photographers, quilters and architects. Time to give a nod to women artists who braved the early entertainment business. It’s a tough venue in which to work and I can assure you from experience, just getting the proverbial “foot in the door” is a real challenge.
Along the way we have explored female painters, sculptors, photographers, quilters and architects. Time to give a nod to women artists who braved the early entertainment business. It’s a tough venue in which to work and I can assure you from experience, just getting the proverbial “foot in the door” is a real challenge.
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| Irene Lentz Pictured with original designs Los Angeles, California |
There is an enormous range of artistic areas in which to work in show
business; everything from animation, which includes storyboard artists and
inkers, make-up, scene painters, set designers and dressers and costume
designers. Most people with even a cursory knowledge of film costume designers are
familiar with the names Edith Head and Bob Mackie. Unfortunately, few have ever heard of Irene Lentz, a twice-Oscar-nominated designer with a
seemingly charmed career that ended in tragedy when she leaped to her death from
her room at Hollywood's Knickerbocker Hotel in 1962.
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| Irene at a fitting |
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| Frank Richard JonesAmerican Director and Producer Husband of Irene Lentz ca 1919 |
Lentz had been sewing since childhood
and, with a gift for style, she opened a small dress shop on the USC campus in Los
Angeles. After her husband's death and her return from Europe, she opened another boutique at
9000 Sunset Boulevard where she built a following among wealthy women. Those influential clients included MGM chief Louis B. Mayer's daughters Irene and Edith and a
celebrity clientele that would embody Marilyn Monroe, Ava Gardner, and Carole Lombard. Bullocks, a now defunct but high-end department store in Los Angeles, offered Lentz the opportunity to open her own custom design shop at
the store. As a costume designer, her first big
film break came when she designed the wardrobe for the 1933 film Flying Down to Rio.
Lentz remembers, the day Mayer called. "I thought maybe he wanted me to design wardrobe for some pictures," instead, he offered her the job as head of MGM's costume department, replacing the well-known Gilbert Adrian, who was leaving to start his own fashion line. During her tenure, Lentz (who had by then closed her shop at Bullocks) clashed with Mayer. "It was not easy for her," says fashion writer Mary Hall, founder of The Recessionista blog, who has researched Lentz's life. "She had conflicts with Mayer because she wanted quality in design. Mayer's top priority was economy in design." In addition to work pressures, her second marriage to screenwriter Eliot Gibbons (brother of MGM head art director Cedric Gibbons) was said to be an unhappy one.
Lentz remembers, the day Mayer called. "I thought maybe he wanted me to design wardrobe for some pictures," instead, he offered her the job as head of MGM's costume department, replacing the well-known Gilbert Adrian, who was leaving to start his own fashion line. During her tenure, Lentz (who had by then closed her shop at Bullocks) clashed with Mayer. "It was not easy for her," says fashion writer Mary Hall, founder of The Recessionista blog, who has researched Lentz's life. "She had conflicts with Mayer because she wanted quality in design. Mayer's top priority was economy in design." In addition to work pressures, her second marriage to screenwriter Eliot Gibbons (brother of MGM head art director Cedric Gibbons) was said to be an unhappy one.
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| Ginger Rogers in Irene Shall We DanceRKO Radio Pictures ca 1937 |
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| Ava Gardner The Postman Always Rings Twice Metro-Goldwyn-Mayerca 1946 |
Lentz not only costumed Hollywood's Golden Age stars for the big screen,
famously putting Lana Turner in then-scandalous high-waist shorts
with a midriff-baring top in 1946's The Postman Always Rings Twice,
she also dressed them in life. Her signature Irene clothing line was one of only two to have its own salon at the Bullocks Wilshire department store in the 1930s and '40s (Coco Chanel had the other). But since her death, until fairly recently, Lentz has been largely forgotten. "She is the most celebrated costume
designer nobody has heard of," says TV and movie costume designer Greg LaVoi, who is in process of writing a book about her.
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| Doris Day in Irene ca 1960 |
Her close friend Doris Day, whom Lentz dressed in the early ’60s films Lover Come Back and
Midnight Lace, still remembers her fondly. "She
was such a talented designer, and I loved everything she did for me," Day
tells THR. "She knew
exactly what I liked, and when we did a film, we didn't even have to discuss my
wardrobe because she knew what I would wear." Lentz was revered for her dresses in ultrafine silk soufflé,
luxurious bias-cut chiffon gowns and kick-pleated day skirts. Her looks
represented a new wave of modern American dressing: wide swingy trousers with
elegant silk blouses, tailored suits cut to hug a woman's curves, with hand
stitching and exquisite buttons. "Her tailoring flattered a woman's
figure," says Doris Raymond, owner of L.A. consignment store The Way We
Wore.
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| Irene Lentz Design Dinner dress of bianchini black crepe |
By the end of the ’40s, Lentz wanted out of MGM. After leaving MGM, she founded her own fashion line and sold that line in 20 of the biggest department stores in America in the 1950s. including Bergdorf Goodman and Neiman Marcus, to relaunch her
line at a more mass-market level. "It was marketing genius. Upscale stores
could offer clients the Irene garments that stars loved," says Hall.
"Today, that would be similar to how someone like [designer] Janie Bryant has leveraged Mad Men to design a
fashion line for Banana Republic. Except Irene was a fashion designer before
she was hired by the studios."
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| Irene Lentz Design |
If her career sounds like a Hollywood movie, the ending is a real tear-jerker. On Nov. 15, 1962, days after her latest show received rave
reviews and three weeks short of her sixty-first birthday, Lentz checked into the Knickerbocker in Hollywood under an assumed name. (The now-closed
hotel has a history of tragedy: Actress Frances Farmer was arrested there before her
institutionalization, and I Love Lucy's William Frawley was dragged there to die after he
had a heart attack on the street.)
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| Hollywood Knickerbocker Hotel 1714 Ivar and Hollywood Boulevard ca 1940s |
There is some question as to what drove her to such despair. In her 1975 autobiography, Doris Day wrote that Lentz had spoken of a longtime
love for the actor Gary Cooper who was married, but known for his many affairs and had died the year
before. Other factors surely played their parts as well: her husband's ill health following
a series of strokes, her alcoholism and an incident (recounted by client Barbara Sinatra in her autobiography) in which Lentz suffered facial paralysis after falling asleep with her face under an electric
blanket.
Lentz jumped to her death from her bathroom window where she landed on the awning of the lobby entrance and was not discovered until the following morning. Lentz left suicide notes for friends and family, for her ailing husband, and for the hotel residents, apologizing for any inconvenience her death might cause. As per her wishes, Lentz is interred next to her first husband, F. Richard Jones, at the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California.
Lentz jumped to her death from her bathroom window where she landed on the awning of the lobby entrance and was not discovered until the following morning. Lentz left suicide notes for friends and family, for her ailing husband, and for the hotel residents, apologizing for any inconvenience her death might cause. As per her wishes, Lentz is interred next to her first husband, F. Richard Jones, at the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California.
Sadly, her line closed a few years after her death. But Lentz no
doubt would be pleased to see her designs coming back into style. Says Day:
"I can see why there is interest in her today. I often hear from fans
telling me how much they loved my wardrobes in films, and I can thank Irene for
that. Her designs are truly timeless."
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| Marlene Dietrich in Irene The Lady is Willing Columbia Pictures ca 1942 |
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| Doris Day in Irene Midnight Lace Ross Hunter Universal-International ca 1960 |
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| Irene Lentz |
sources__________________________________________________________________________
1. http://articles.latimes.com/2014/feb/17/image/la-ig-irene-20140216, retrieved December 2, 2016
2. Colette, Californian Elegance, February 2011, https://blog.colettehq.com/inspiration/irene-californian-elegance, retrieved December 2, 2016
3. http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/irene-lentz-costume-designers-chic-430898, retrieved December 2, 2016
Vintage Style Files, The California Elegance of Irene Lentz, January 2014, 4. http://www.bluevelvetvintage.com/vintage_style_files/2014/01/06/the-california-elegance-of-irene-lentz/, retrieved December 2, 2016
5. The Hollywood Reporter Remembers Irene, Mary Hall, 2013, http://therecessionista.com/the-hollywood-reporter-remembers-irene-lentz/?doing_wp_cron=1481046590.9050979614257812500000, retrieved December 5, 2016
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