With 35 Academy Award nominations, eight-time Oscar winner Edith Head emerged from Hollywood's fitting rooms to become a household name. One of the film industry's first professional women, she became a major American fashion force, designing for Vogue patterns and airlines as well. Her ability to shape each gown to a character or image made her as popular with film directors as with the glamour girls she dressed in both their private lives and screen roles. Yet the image she devoted the most work to was her own. Her friendly frankness led to regular appearances on Art Linkletter's daytime television show in the 1950s, offering advice to the unchic. Born Edith Claire Posener in San Bernardino, California, Head studied at Stanford and was teaching French in 1923 at the Hollywood School for Girls when she bluffed her way into Paramount's wardrobe department. The workload might have overwhelmed anyone, but this feisty 5' 1-1/2" careerist used the volume and pace of designing for a healthy studio system to hone her style. Although she had a penchant for Mexican designs, Head's own appearance was deliberately severe, neutral and unsensuous, with cropped hair and her signature tinted eyeglasses. Yet she could turn other women into screen sirens. In the 1920s, her designs transformed Clara Bow's squat body into an object of desire. Head then allowed Jean Harlow to display her best assets with an unforgettable bias-cut slip-dress. Head simplified the fin de siècle raunchiness of Mae West and learned to deal with the censors by covering her up -- with skin-tight clothes. In the 1930s, when bare midriffs were the rage, Head learned how to get around the cinema censors' horror of the female navel. For the Biblical epic, SAMSON AND DELILAH (1949), Head created a famous peacock cape for Hedy Lamarr, extravagant even by Head's standards. She made Dorothy Lamour's sarong, Barbara Stanwyck's Latin American wardrobe for THE LADY EVE (1941), the definitive tailored suit for Marlene Dietrich, the wasp-waisted gowns of Mary Martin, Veronica Lake, Bette Davis and Elizabeth Taylor, and for Ingrid Bergman men's clothes (FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS, 1943), a nun's habit (THE BELLS OF ST. MARY'S, 1945) and subtle espionage gear (NOTORIOUS, 1946). Her talents were trumpeted by studio publicity departments determined to seize on fashion in films as a way of diverting attention from Paris and making Hollywood the arbiter of taste. The "look" that stands out in Head's spectrum of styles is best exemplified in her designs for Hitchcock's blondes, particularly Grace Kelly's discreet sexiness, which she adapted for Audrey Hepburn and Natalie Wood. In 1967, Head's contract at Paramount expired and was not renewed, despite 44 years of service. She moved her operation to Universal Studios and continued her workaholic pattern until her final film, DEAD MEN DON'T WEAR PLAID (1982), for which she adapted her own original designs for Steve Martin. Another of Head's male sartorial achievements was THE STING (1973), which launched one of many Head-inspired trends. In some 750 films through six decades, Head shaped the industry in the shape of its stars. She was married to art director Wiard Ihnen from 1949 until his death in 1979.

Nominated for Costume Design (Color) 1948: THE EMPEROR WALTZ (w. Gile Steele)  Costume Design (Black and White) 1949: THE HEIRESS (w. Gile Steele)  Costume Design (Black and White) 1950: ALL ABOUT EVE (w. Charles LeMaire)  Costume Design (Color) 1950: SAMSON AND DELILAH (w. Gile Steele, Dorothy Jeakins, Elois Jenssen & Gwen Wakeling)  Costume Design (Black and White) 1951: A PLACE IN THE SUN  Nominated for Costume Design (Black and White) 1952: CARRIE  Nominated for Costume Design (Color) 1952: THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH (w. Dorothy Jeakins & Miles White)  Costume Design (Black and White) 1953: ROMAN HOLIDAY  Costume Design (Black and White) 1954: SABRINA  Nominated for Costume Design (Color) 1955: TO CATCH A THIEF  Nominated for Costume Design (Black and White) 1955: THE ROSE TATTOO  Nominated for Costume Design (Color) 1956: THE TEN COMMANDMENTS (w. Ralph Jester, John Jensen, Dorothy Jeakins & Arnold Friberg)  Nominated for Costume Design (Black and White) 1956: THE PROUD AND PROFANE  Nominated for Costume Design 1957: FUNNY FACE (w. Hubert De Givenchy)  Nominated for Costume Design 1958: THE BUCCANEER (w. Ralph Jester & John Jensen)  Nominated for Costume Design (Color) 1959: THE FIVE PENNIES  Nominated for Costume Design (Black and White) 1959: CAREER  Costume Design (Black and White) 1960: THE FACTS OF LIFE (w. Edward Stevenson)  Nominated for Costume Design (Color) 1960: PEPE  Nominated for Costume Design (Color) 1961: POCKETFUL OF MIRACLES (w. Walter Plunkett)  Nominated for Costume Design (Black and White) 1962: THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE  Nominated for Costume Design (Color) 1962: MY GEISHA  Nominated for Costume Design (Black and White) 1963: WIVES AND LOVERS  Nominated for Costume Design (Black and White) 1963: LOVE WITH THE PROPER STRANGER  Nominated for Costume Design (Color) 1963: A NEW KIND OF LOVE  Nominated for Costume Design (Color) 1964: WHAT A WAY TO GO! (w. Moss Mabry)  Nominated for Costume Design (Black and White) 1964: A HOUSE IS NOT A HOME  Nominated for Costume Design (Color) 1965: INSIDE DAISY CLOVER (w. Bill Thomas)  Nominated for Costume Design (Black and White) 1965: THE SLENDER THREAD  Nominated for Costume Design (Color) 1966: THE OSCAR  Nominated for Costume Design 1969: SWEET CHARITY  Nominated for Costume Design 1970: AIRPORT  Costume Design 1973: THE STING  Nominated for Costume Design 1975: THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING  Nominated for Costume Design 1977: AIRPORT '77 (w. Burton F. Miller) 35 nominations, 8 Awards