Dorothy Jeakins’ Unforgettable Costumes in Film

* On the cover, Elizabeth Taylor presents an Oscar to Dorothy Jeakins

Dorothy Jeakins may not be a well-known name, but she was one of the leading designers in Hollywood during its golden age.

Dorothy was born on January 11, 1914, and when she finished her studies she won a scholarship to study Arts and Design. She began her career at Disney, working on WPA projects (I didn’t know what that was either, but I read that it was a project in which people worked on public works to get the country out of the recession that 1929 had left). Some time later she was called by Victor Flemming to design the costumes for Joan of Arc (1948). But she didn’t work alone, she teamed up with designer Barbara Karinska and the result was an Oscar for both of them.

Dorothy worked as a freelancer, designing costumes for several different studios. Working with other designers or alone, she was nominated for an Oscar 11 times, winning twice for the films Joan of Arc (1948), Samson and Delilah (sharing the award with Edith Head, Elois Jenssen, Gile Steele and Gwen Wakeling) and The Night of the Iguana (1964). But let’s see how it all started and, of course, show you some of her designs. The last film for which she designed her costumes was The Living and the Dead (1987). After that, she retired from the screen and began working as a curator at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. She died on November 21, 1995 in Los Angeles at the age of 81. Let’s take a look at some of her designs:

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Carla Marinho Leal

Writer, traveler and above all, curious about many subjects. She has studied cinema since 2002 and is a Specialist in Cinematographic Studies from UNICAP. Founder of the blog Purviance and the website Cinemaclássico. She loves Charles Chaplin, Raj Kapoor and constantly browses films from all over the world.

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