5 days til Oscar. Will Ann Roth win again for her 5th nomination?
Tuesday, April 20, 2021 at 10:15AM by Nathaniel R
Ann Roth on the set of "Ma Rainey"
With five days until Oscars we were looking for a way to celebrate the number five today that related to this year's Oscars. The only fifth time nominee we could find (though perhaps we missed someone) is Ann Roth who we've celebrated before. The 89 year-old costume designer has somehow won only one Oscar and one Tony despite a prolific and eye-poppingly rich career on both stages and screen. Her Tony win came for the Nathan Lane play The Nance (which we think would make a pretty great movie) and these are the film designs for which she was nominated...
What's your favourite of her Oscar nominations?
- Places in the Heart (1984) ... lost to Theodor Pistek for Amadeus
- The English Patient (1996) WINNER
- The Talented Mr Ripley (1999)... lost to Lindy Hemming for Topsy-Turvy
- The Hours (2002) ... lost to Colleen Atwood for Chicago
- Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (2020) ...pending
She just won the BAFTA and CDG for these costumes but at the Oscars she has stiff competition from Emma, Mulan (CDG win), Pinocchio, and Mank. If she wins the Oscar on Sunday night she'll become the second-oldest Oscar winner of all time, just behind James Ivory who was also 89 when he won for Best Adapted Screenplay for Call Me By Your Name (2017) but a month or two closer to his 90th birthday.
For fun which of her other costume design work is your favourite...
- The World of Henry Orient (1964) film debut
- Midnight Cowboy (1969)
- Klute (1971) which inspired fashion trends... Oscar's avoidance of contemporary designs really hurts their legacy!
- Day of the Locust (1976) BAFTA win
- Murder by Death (1976)
- 9 to 5 (1980)
- The Birdcage (1996)
- Angels in America (2003) Emmy nomination
- Cold Mountain (2003) BAFTA nomination
- Mamma Mia! (2008) CDG nomination
- Julie & Julia (2009) CDG nomination
- Mildred Pierce (2011) Emmy nomination
- The Post (2017)
So much beauty in that filmography.
OSCAR CATEGORY REVIEWS
- Picture
- Director
- Actress
- Actor
- Supporting Actress
- Supporting Actor
- Adapted Screenplay
- Cinematography
- Costume Design
- Makeup and Hair
- Original Song
- Sound
- Visual Effects
- Documentary Feature
- Shorts, Animated
- Shorts, Doc
- Shorts, Live Action
plus
- Um... who is winning best actress?
- Double acting nomination complications
- How often does Best Actor go to a non-Best Picture nominated film?
- New Oscar records
- History of Posthumous Oscars
- Oldest Best Actor Nominees of all time (two are from this year!)
- Oldest Best Supporting Nominees of all time (two are from this year!)
Reader Comments (30)
Good god, what an incredible body of work. And fascinating how she simply doesn’t seem to choose the extravagant Oscar-bait projects. She simply makes actors look good and characters real.
She's really wonderful. Also, have Jude Law, Matt Damon, and Ralph Fiennes ever looked better than they have? She really knows how to dress men in oxfords.
I actually think it's hard to argue against her English Patient costumes. She dresses all the characters appropriately in ways that never draws attention away from the story, but simply adds to it. In particular, I think the fit of her clothing (e.g., Binoche's dress, Thomas' jacket) tell us a bit about their characters.
Klute, The Post, and 9 to 5 all have memorable looks.
She's bested one Emma adaptation. Maybe she'll do it again!
God bless her for Matt Damon's speedo in Ripley plus Jude looks good in everything, but I really really like her work in Ma Rainey.
Midnight Cowboy and Klute.
It's not my favorite, but I'm surprised she wasn't nominated for Cold Mountain since that just screams out costumes to me. The sheer tackiness of Mamma Mia is probably my favorite but I'm not surprised that wouldn't be nominated. Those overalls are surely the ugliest major costume that Meryl Streep has ever worn?
Her biggest competition is fr Emma. which I'd prefer, but Roth has the momentum n a stronger stats to sail thru to her 2nd Oscars.
Byrne will probably be back again v soon, but Roth is alr pushing 90, so yeah she's probably deserve it more cos who kno if she will ever b back
Ma Rainey's Black Bottom is her chance - but I'd vote for Pinocchio.
I love all of those mentioned, plus her "contemporary" work on WORKING GIRL, POSTCARDS FROM THE EDGE, CLOSER, and MARGOT AT THE WEDDING.
Though the MA RAINEY costumes wouldn't be my first choice, I do hope she wins Saturday.
With some of her colleagues having eight, nine nominations and winning three, four times, it's no wonder that she still hasn't won her Oscar even with such a great work. The competition for Best Costume Design has always been very disputed and in some editions, difficult to say which is the best. Since the category was created, quite late in my view. Some terrible films have incredible costumes. It is one of my favorite categories at the Oscars.
My favorite of her nominated work? Places in the Heart.
She costumed Working Girl? That was really strong work. Probably should have been nominated; the costumes really were key to the story.
While not flashing, her work on PLACES IN THE HEART, a film I teach, is really impressive. Not only are the clothes spot on for poor Texans of the depression (it's as if she pulled some of the clothes out of my grandma's closet), but they look worn and a bit dingy--like clothes from an era before Clorox 2. They really help you time travel back to the era of the film.
The Talented Mr. Ripley is beautifully glamorous.
Her costumes in the Sally Field film are tremendous. I like her, I like her!
Klute... and everything she's ever done. I'd also ad her work in The Reader. The actors ' ultimate costume designer. My absolute favorite along with Sandy Powell
Dan Humphrey teaches the greatly underrated film Places In The Heart? Legend behaviour!
And fascinating how she simply doesn’t seem to choose the extravagant Oscar-bait projects.
@Richard: I noticed the same thing. Aside from Cold Mountain, every project is set in the 20th century! (The Meryl Streep part of The Hours and the non-Meryl Streep part of Julie & Julia also peek into the 21st century.)
How could I forget Working Girl? No dessert for me tonight.
So many great looks.
I am really rooting for her Sunday.
Overall I would pick The Birdcage, Nine to Five,Talented Mr. Ripley.
A very Minghella choice: my favorite of the nominees is Ripley, and from the “snubbed”, Cold Mountain (though the credit is shared with Poggioli and I really don’t know exactly which pieces are Roth’s work).
We talked about Anthony Powell in a previous post, about his extravagance. Ann Roth is the opposite. Equally elegant like Powell, yet clean and its period pieces border on contemporary. There is so much beauty in what she did. The Hours is my favorite with Places in the Heart second. Of the works not nominated I'd say that Cold Mountain, Murder by Death and Working Girl - three dear flicks - are my favorite and deserved to be among the nominated ones.
Why is nobody talking about The Day of the Locust? It was canceled? Is it problematic? Maybe no one has ever seen it but me? Because it's one of Ann Roth's best works, as good as the cast and the film itself. A movie about movies based on a book that is considered unable to be made into a movie. He had two Oscar nominations: Supporting Actor (Burgess Meredith) and Cinematography (Conrad L. Hall). They forgot one of their highlights, the beautiful and haunting costumes of Ann Roth.
My movie group just watched Midnight Cowboy, and what a fabulous job she did on that film. I wonder what happened to Jon Voight's cowboy hat?
of course she wasn't nominated for working girl - that dress wasn't even leath-uh
What, no love for Burnt Offerings?
@The T Well, it's a seminar on the representations of Texas in film. I'm not quite saying it's the CITIZEN KANE of Waxahachie. (Well, I guess it is kind of the CITIZEN KANE of Waxahachie.)
Day Of the Locust,(So underrated )
Silkwood
Midnight Cowboy
Honky Tonk Freeway (hilarious)
Klute
Her work on 2 contemporary films that went unheralded for their costumes. She has been a favorite of mine for decades!
Klute: Jane Fonda's boots! And tht slinky dress she unzips!
Dressed to Kill: Angie Dickinson's white dress and jacket!
Midnight Cowboy: Sylvia Miles in that tight dress walking her poodle.
Of her other work: favorite - The World of Henry Orient, runner-up - 9 to 5.
Of her nominated work, The Talented Mr. Ripley is pretty much perfect, although Topsy-Turvy winning was understandable.
Among her Oscar noms, I think AMPAS got it right with THE ENGLISH PATIENT - and honestly, I'd probs vote for MANK this year. She surely, however, deserved more than a single Tony.
I like how Ann’s niece, Amy Roth, also a costume designer (“Motherless Brooklyn”), talks about learning from Ann. Amy and Ann’s daughter Hannah were enlisted to work on location as soon as they were old enough to work.
(From Playbill, Nov. 11, 2019, by Ruthie Fierberg)
“The “right way” is an approach rooted in research and the cultivation of an historical knowledge base about clothing and fashion and fabric and functionality.”
(Amy always shows her research to Ann)
“She’ll give me solutions to things that you don’t get advice for. All crew members ask for Ann’s thoughts and opinions on all matters.”
"What, no love for Burnt Offerings?"
Bette Davis wears a hat in that film that deserved an Oscar, but I'm not sure if the Oscar should have gone to Roth for designing the hat, Davis for wearing the hat, or the hat itself.