Arizona-based actress and Invisible Theatre's Managing Artistic Director, SUSAN CLAASSEN, most recently completed a sold-out 5 week run at the El Portal Theatre in North Hollywood. Many Hollywood greats attended the show's Los Angeles premiere including actors Barbara Rush, Stefanie Powers, Susan Clark, Jane Withers and Tippi Hedren, star of "The Birds". Miss Hedren even presented "Miss Head" with two reproductions of sketches from her personal collection.
The Costume Designer's Guild (Edith was a founding member) hosted an opening night gala with Emmy-Award winning designers Jacqueline Saint-Anne,
Edith Head protege Jean-Pierre Dorleac, Helen Colving, Lawrence "The Fashion Guy" Zarian, "Trading Spaces"
Paige Davis, "The Closers" Greg LaVoi,
Mary Rose (President, Costume Designer's Guild) and Tim Malachosky,
Mae West's personal assistant and friend of
Edith Head.
Legendary producer/director
Norman Lear who led the standing ovation on opening night said, "Your Edith IS Edith. Except she'd like to have been as entertaining!"
Joan Rivers, who saw the performance in London commented to Los Angeles Times,
"I knew
Edith Head quite well and Susan Claassen's vivid portrayal is an astonishing and deeply researched piece of theater. A must see for all movie buffs and fashionistas."
Broadway World's
Don Grigware included A CONVERSATION WITH
Edith Head, Ovation Recommended, in his Picks for the BEST in California Theatre for 2010.
"A CONVERSATION WITH
Edith Head", based on
Edith Head'S HOLLYWOOD by
Edith Head & Paddy Calistro, is a feast of delicious behind-the-scenes stories about Hollywood's greatest stars that provide an intimate portrait of Hollywood's legendary costume designer. In her six decades of costume design,
Edith Head worked on over eleven hundred films; dressed the greatest stars of Hollywood; received 35 Academy Award® nominations, and won an unprecedented eight Oscars®.
Edith Head's story is as fascinating as the history of the film industry itself, filled with humor, frustration and, above all, glamour. This diva of design helped to define glamour in the most glamorous place in the world - Hollywood!
Edith Head was a Hollywood costume designer for more than 60 years. 44 of those years were spent at Paramount Studios, where she worked with the most famous actors of the time, from
Mae West and Clara Bow to
Grace Kelly,
Audrey Hepburn and
Bette Davis. When Paramount failed to renew her contract in 1967,
Alfred Hitchcock stepped in and Ms. Head was invited to join
Universal Studios. At Universal she costumed
Robert Redford and
Paul Newman in "The Sting" and won the first-ever Oscar® for a film without a female lead. Her eight Academy Awards® celebrated her artistry in "The Heiress" (her first Oscar®), "Samson & Delilah", "All About Eve", "A Place in the Sun", "Roman Holiday", "Sabrina", "The Facts of Life" and "The Sting".
Edith Head died in October 1981, still under contract to
Universal Studios, having just completed the
Steve Martin film, "Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid".
Susan Claassen was inspired to write and star in A CONVERSATION WITH
Edith Head while watching a TV biography of Ms. Head. Susan Claassen said: "Not only do I bear a striking resemblance to Edith, but we share the same love for clothes and fashion. Edith survived the boy's club of Hollywood to enjoy a 60-year career, during which she worked on 1,131 films, earned 35 Oscar® nominations and won eight. She stitched
Dorothy Lamour into her sarong; put
Bob Hope and
Bing Crosby in kilts in "The Road to Bali"; created
Bette Davis' glamorous Margo Channing; made teenage girls swoon over
ElizaBeth Taylor's white ball gown in "A Place in the Sun"; dressed
Ingrid Bergman in "Notorious",
Grace Kelly in "To Catch A Thief",
Kim Novak in "Vertigo",
Gloria Swanson in "Sunset Boulevard" and
Sean Connery in "The Man Who Would Be King". There are many myths about her but she was a discreet, tenacious personality. She knew whose hips needed clever disguising and made sure those legendary stars always looked the part. Our show gives the inside scoop on Edith and the Golden Age of Hollywood."
Much of the dialogue in A CONVERSATION WITH
Edith Head comes directly from the famed designer. When she was asked to write the authorized posthumous autobiography,
Edith Head'S HOLLYWOOD, Paddy Calistro acquired more than 13 hours of recollections recorded by
Edith Head - including her own snippy "Edithisms" as Ms. Head referred to her own sayings, such as: "I hate modesty, don't you?" and "Good clothes are not a matter of good luck." The show also features insights from Hollywood insiders who knew Ms. Head best: costume designer
Bob Mackie, who once worked as Ms. Head's sketch artist; her dear friend Edie Wasserman, wife of the late Universal Studio head Lew Wasserman, and Art Linkletter, award-winning host of TV's "House Party", who brought
Edith Head into the homes of America. Edith would stroll through the studio audience with Linkletter, offering brutally critical fashion, diet and grooming advice - all this half a century before the current mania for on-screen makeovers. "Go on a diet!" she would instruct an overweight woman, while instantly making her look ten pounds slimmer by pulling her shirt out of her trousers, whipping a belt around her middle and swapping her cheap gold jewelry for her own signature pearls. Young fans of Pixar's "The Incredibles" will recognized the superhero outfitter Edna Mode as an affectionate tribute to the legendary Hollywood costume designer.
A CONVERSATION WITH
Edith Head premiered at the Invisible Theatre in Tucson, Arizona. It was subsequently presented in Chicago; Key West; at the American Film Institute in Silver Spring, MD; Hartford; San Francisco; Nantucket; San Diego; Scottsdale; Houston; Oklahoma; Costume Society of America National Symposium as well as internationally in Tbilisi in the Republic of Georgia; a 'sold out' engagement at the 2007 Edinburgh Festival Fringe (out of the 2,000 shows at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe only 200 were officially designated 'Sold Out' engagements), an acclaimed five-week run at the Leicester Square Theatre in London's West End and most recently at The El Portal Theatre in North Hollywood.
Edith Head'S HOLLYWOOD
by
Edith Head and Paddy Calistro
with foreword by
Bette Daviswill be available at all performances.
About the People
SUSAN CLAASSEN is celebrating her thirty-sixth anniversary with the Invisible Theatre (IT) of Tucson, Arizona. As Managing Artistic Director, she has produced more than 360 productions and directed more than eighty. Susan has been a proud member of
Actors' Equity Association (the professional actors' union) since 1969, a member of the League of Professional Theatre Women and The Costume Society of America. Some of her most memorable roles have been Bella in LOST IN YONKERS, Alice B. Toklas in
Gertrude Stein AND A COMPANION, Hannah in CROSSING DELANCEY, Shirley in SHIRLEY VALENTINE, Theda in IT HAD TO BE YOU, Trudy and all in THE SEARCH FOR SIGNS OF INTELLIGENT LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE and most recently Vi in NATIVES. In addition to her work with the Invisible Theatre, she has been a consultant and director for the Waterfront Playhouse and The Red Barn Theatre in Key West, Florida, and directed
Steve Ross in I WON'T DANCE at New York's famed Rainbow and Stars Cabaret and St. Paul's prestigious Ordway Theatre. Susan was the 1999 City of Hope "Spirit of Life" honoree, received Tucson's "Humanitarian Torch Award" for her work on behalf of people living with AIDS and performs as a clown in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. She was selected as one of Tucson Lifestyle's 10 Most Admired Women and was honored by The Jewish Federation in 2009 as one of Tucson's 13 extraordinary women. Susan dedicates her work to the living memory of her beloved mother, Goldie.
PADDY CALISTRO is one of the leading authorities on
Edith Head and is the co-author of
Edith Head's posthumous autobiography,
Edith Head's Hollywood. The only authorized biography of the world's most famous costume designer, the book was the first of several books written by Paddy Calistro. She was selected as Ms. Head's official biographer based on her experience as a fashion journalist. A former staff writer for the Los Angeles Times in the fashion and beauty department, Paddy wrote the weekly "Looks" column featured in the Los Angeles Times Magazine for four years as well as contributing several feature articles to the daily Times and its weekly magazine. She also was the West Coast reporter for Allure from its inception. Additionally, she contributed to Glamour, Mademoiselle, House Beautiful, Elle, Four Seasons Magazine and frequently to Fitness and Los Angeles. For more than a decade Paddy was the lead interior design writer for Los Angeles magazine, coordinating and writing sections on trends in home design. She was the editor of American Style, a bilingual fashion magazine sold in Mexico and South America. The co-founder of Angel City Press, an independent book publishing company based in Santa Monica, she currently serves as its publisher and editor-in-chief. Angel City Press released the 25th anniversary edition of
Edith Head's Hollywood in 2009.
"There's nothing like a row of Oscars® for putting the fear of God into an actress who thinks she knows everything about dress designing"
THE HEIRESS, 1949
SAMSON AND DELILAH, 1950
ALL ABOUT EVE, 1950
A PLACE IN THE SUN, 1951
ROMAN HOLIDAY, 1953
SABRINA, 1954
THE FACTS OF LIFE, 1960
THE STING, 1973
Edith Head received an unprecedented 35 Academy Award nominations
and won a record-setting eight Oscars® for Costume Design
"You can have anything you want in life if you dress for it."
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