Irene Lentz

Irene born Irene Lentz and also known as Irene Gibbons, (8 December 1900 - 15 November 1962) was a costume designer. Her work as a clothing designer in Los Angeles led to her career as a costume designer for films in the 1930s.

Life and career

Born in Baker, Montana, Lentz started out as an actress under her birth name, appearing in secondary roles in silent films beginning with Keystone Studios in 1921. She was directed in her first film by F. Richard Jones and the two eventually began a relationship that led to a marriage that lasted until his premature death in 1930. Like almost all women of her era, she had been taught sewing as a child and with a flair for style, she decided to open a small dress shop. The success of her designs in her tiny store eventually led to an offer from the Bullocks Wilshire luxury department store to design for their Ladies Custom Salon which catered to a wealthy clientele including a number of Hollywood stars.

Lentz designs at Bullocks gained her much attention in the film community and she was contracted by independent production companies to design the wardrobe for some of their productions. Billing herself simply as "Irene," her first work came in 1933 on the film "Goldie Gets Along" featuring her designs for star Lily Damita. However, her big break came when she was hired to create the gowns for Ginger Rogers for her 1937 film "Shall We Dance" with Fred Astaire. This was followed by more designs in another Ginger Rogers film as well as work for other independents such as Walter Wanger Productions, Hal Roach Studios as well as majors such as RKO, Paramount Pictures and Columbia Pictures. During the 1930s, Irene Lentz designed the film wardrobe for leading ladies such as Constance Bennett, Hedy Lamarr, Joan Bennett, Claudette Colbert, Carole Lombard, Ingrid Bergman, and Loretta Young amongst others.

Through her work, Irene Lentz met and married short story author and screenwriter Eliot Gibbons, brother of multi-Academy Award winning Cedric Gibbons, head of art direction at MGM Studios. Generally regarded as the most important and influential production designer in the history of American films, Cedric Gibbons hired Irene Lentz when gown designer Adrian left MGM to join Universal Studios, By 1943 she was a leading costume supervisor at MGM, earning international recognition for her "soufflé creations" and is remembered for her avant-garde wardrobe for Lana Turner in 1946's "The Postman Always Rings Twice". In 1948, she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Costume Design, Black-and-White for "B.F.'s Daughter".

Despite her success, working under a powerful and arrogant chauvinist such as Cedric Gibbons while being married to his brother was not easy and in 1950 Irene Lentz left MGM to open her own fashion house. After being out of the film industry for nearly ten years, in 1960, friend Doris Day requested her talents for the Universal Studios, production, "Midnight Lace" for which Lentz earned a second Academy Award nomination. The following year she did the costume design for another Doris Day's film and during 1962 worked on her last production, "A Gathering of Eagles".

In 1962, after Doris Day noticed that Irene seemed upset and nervous, the costume designer confided in her that she was in love with actor Gary Cooper and that he was the only man that she had ever loved. Sadly, Cooper had died in 1961. On November 15, three weeks short of her sixty-second birthday, Irene took a room at the Knickerbocker Hotel, checking in under an assumed name. She cut her wrists but when this did not prove to be immediately fatal, she jumped to her death from her bathroom window at about 3 p.m., landing on the extended roof of the lobby, where she was discovered later that same night (not two days later, as is often reported). She had left caring notes for friends and family, for her ailing husband, and for the hotel residents, apologizing for any inconvenence her death might cause. As per her wishes, she was interred next to her first husband, "F. Richard Jones", in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California.

In 2005, Irene Lentz was inducted into the Costume Designers Guild's "Anne Cole Hall of Fame".

Actresses Designed For

*Hedy Lamarr in "Algiers" 1938
*Ingrid Bergman in "" 1939
*Claudette Colbert in "Midnight" 1939
*Marlene Dietrich in "Seven Sinners" 1940
*Rita Hayworth in "You Were Never Lovelier" 1942
*Carole Lombard in "To Be or Not to Be" 1942
*Lana Turner in "The Postman Always Rings Twice" 1946
*Irene Dunne in "The White Cliffs of Dover" 1944

External links

* [http://www.oscars.org/mhl/sc/irene_215.html The Irene Collection at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences]
*imdb name|id=0409898|name= Irene
* [http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=13016 Irene's Gravesite]