Films that made me want to be a costume designer

Costume Designer Daniel Orlandi Guest Blog Day. Here's Daniel...

Growing up in New Jersey I started to sneak into Manhattan at a very young age to see Broadway shows which made me want to be a set designer. Bu it was at the movies where I fell in love with costumes. My parents both loved movies and they took me with them as it was cheaper than getting a sitter. I can watch a film as an adult and think “Oh wow that's what the film was about. Suzie Wong was a prostitute!” Movies theaters were also my Saturday afternoon activity. Mom would drop me off and pick me up after she ran her errands.

I loved the Doris Day and Rock Hudson films and all their imitations. The film where I first really noticed costume design was The Art Of Love (1965). I saw it so many times as it was the second feature Saturday afternoon for so many other films...

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The Honoraries: Debbie Reynolds in "The Unsinkable Molly Brown" (1964)

This week we're celebrating the three Honorary Oscar winners. Here's abstew on Debbie Reynolds' favorite role.

Molly Brown is my favorite of all the roles I've played. I love something about almost every part I've done, but I identified with Molly as soon as I met her. In the sometimes blurry line between art and and real life, Molly is the woman I've become as the years have passed. I'm right there with her when she declares, "I ain't down yet!"

-Debbie Reynolds Unsinkable: A Memoir

In her decades long show business career, amid the watchful eye of media scrutiny, Debbie Reynolds has endured trials and tribulations and come out the other side of it stronger. Caught in a Hollywood scandal, the original jilted girl-next-door (long before Jennifer Aniston was even born), Reynolds stood by while then husband Eddie Fisher left her and her two young children for screen siren Elizabeth Taylor. Her luck with men didn't improve later as second husband Harry Karl spent years gambling away her hard-earned money, leaving her with mounting debts to cover. Even her dream of finding a permanent home to house her legendary collection of movie memorabilia never came to pass and forced her to put them up for auction. So you can see how playing a character like the real life Molly Brown, who survived the sinking of the Titanic, earning her the moniker "Unsinkable", would find a kindred spirit in the guise of feisty spitfire Debbie Reynolds. The actress, like the legendary woman, simply doesn't know what it means to be defeated...

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