Travis Banton with devoted client Carole Lombard, 1934.
Travis Banton, (1894 – 1958) one of Hollywood’s most important costume designers, dressed, among others: Pola Negri, Evelyn Brent, Clara Bow, Florence Vidor, Bebe Daniels, Kay Francis, Lilyan Tashman, Marlene Dietrich, Claudette Colbert, Sylvia Sidney, Gail Patrick and Mae West. Carole Lombard was so devoted to his fashion sense that she wore Banton’s clothing on and off-screen.
A bias-cut specialist, Travis Banton, was, like Adrian, a genius in making fabric drape and mold in highly suggestive ways. Banton was sensitive to a fabric’s weight, color and pattern, and he was acutely aware of how a costume absorbed or reflected light.
During his tenure at Paramount, Banton, like all costume designers, was forced to endure the diva-like behavior of difficult stars. In Hollywood, talent is never enough. Political skills and clever back room plots are invaluable.
For a few short years, Nancy Carroll (1903 – 1965) was a top star for Paramount. Her cutie-pie face served to camouflage a self-absorbed brat with little regard for her co-workers. Directors and producers found her talented but uncooperative, and her career was over by 1938.
The story goes that Banton designed a stunning gown for Carroll that was covered in painstakingly applied beads. At the final fitting, Carroll told Banton that she hated the gown.
She ripped it off her body and tore it to shreds.
A few weeks later, Banton looked out the window of his office and saw Carroll on her way to the costume department for another fitting.
“Here comes my cross,” moaned Banton.
He assigned Carroll’s wardrobe to his assistant, Edith Head, who went on to become Hollywood’s most celebrated—if not the most talented—costume designer.
Adolph Zukor, head of Paramount, called Banton into his office and demanded to know why the head designer was not present for Nancy Carroll’s fittings.
Banton quietly lamented that Carroll had gained so much weight, had become so plump that he could no longer dress the star.
Immediately, Zukor ordered Nancy Carroll on a starvation diet.
Travis Banton had designed the perfect Hollywood revenge.
During the early 30’s, Nancy Carroll received more fan mail
than any other Paramount star. But her difficult behavior
alienated studio heads.
And in today’s Big Hollywood, a slightly rewritten version of my post: The Dhimmis of Hollywood.
Robert – this post is a bit old by Internet standards but I showed this post to my mother, who worked at Bullocks-Wilshire in the late 1940s-early 1950s, and she said (besides enjoying the article) that Edith Head later opened her own section of Bullocks as a couturier. My mother even remembered the opening party.
Heady times!
Dear Mr.Brandt: Thank you.
Happy L’ag B’omer to all.
Miranda:
To answer your question, I think that Hepburn was certainly wealthy but not wealthy as you see some of these stars today.
According to the biography I recently read on Hepburn, (written by her son Sean Ferrer), Hepburn more than most stars really put her family first – she and then husband Mel Ferrer moved from Hollywood to Switzerland to get their son out of the limelight and glitter and when Sean was born in 1960, she really cut back on her movies to have more time with her son.
And apparently life in that little 800 year old town was idyllic for the Hepburns – Sean went to the local public school and was friends with the local children. Audrey could walk in town and not be hounded.
Other than a short period when they lived in Italy with husband #2 this home was theirs for 30 years until her death.
I was reading on the Internet that there was a bit of a row between Sean and the town when the town decided to erect an “Audrey Hepburn Museum” some years after her death – complete with signs pointing to her grave. He had loaned them much of her possessions, including her Oscar for Roman Holiday, and as events unfolded he felt that the town was trying to capitalize on her persona. So now the museum is closed and her possessions are back in Los Angeles.
My comment was meant as sarcasm as I believe most Hollywood stars look at the little people the way a lot of politicians look at ordinary taxpayers – something to be tolerated but with as little contact as possible.
Johnny, you are so wrong it hurts. My daughter, one of the little people, won’t watch the Office because one of the stars on an ego trip shot an underfinanced movie and was constantly taking it out on the little people, and was cheap and chintzy, too.
Dear Mr. Brandt: It’s KATHARINE Hebburn. Couldn’t Audrey Hepburn have afforded her own Gulfstream jet?
Dear Robert: Great, if apocryphal story. Considering how many Hollywood stars suffered, and suffer, from eating disorders, that was VERY cruel of Banton, no matter HOW impossible Carroll was. She could have just given the dress back to the wardrobe department.
Johnny:
That was typed with just a bit of sarcasm wasn’t it? 😉
Like music I wonder how many star’s success could be attributed in part to their wardrobe?
Audrey Hepburn referred to her Givenchy dresses as her “suit of armor”.
At least none of the big stars today are nasty to the “little people” at the studios.
Hi,
Well, it seems you’re biased right and I’m biased left, but we’re both biased bias. My best clothes just swing and drape. Love them.
Man Robert, Hollywood had as much political intrigue as the Kremlin! In reading this it seems that Banton could have been a Paris or NY designer – as all top Hollywood costume designers.
I have always believed that in the workplace, be it Hollywood or an assembly line, the ability to get along with others is almost on an equal plane as talent.
I think that is what kept George Peppard’s career back, too. Demanding that the screenplay be massively rewritten to accommodate his wishes.
Was Audrey Hepburn unique in having a Paris fashion designer, Givenchy, as her movie costumer? I read that was specified in all of her movie contracts.
The story of how they initially met face to face is funny, too.
For the Filming of Sabrina she wanted the then-new Hubert to be her costumer designer. She called his office in Paris and on the appointed day of the meeting, his secretary announced that “Miss Hepburn is here to see you”. And Givenchy thought Katheryn Hepburn was the person, so upon seeing Audrey politely but curtly told her that “I don’t have time for you right now, but you can look in the racks of last year’s clothes”.
And Audrey picked out 3 outfits for the movie.
Anyway they became lifelong friends and from what I read helped each other.
When Audrey was in Los Angeles at Cedars-Sinai – and got her terrible news of inoperable cancer, it was Hubert who, though a call to a wealthy friend and client, provided her and her family with the Gulfstream jet to take her back to Switzerland to die.