Irene

Biografi från Wikipedia

From Wikipedia

Irene Lentz (December 8, 1900 - November 15, 1962), also

known as Irene, was an American costume designer. Her work as a clothing

designer in Los Angeles led to her career as a costume designer for films in

the 1930s. Lentz also worked under the name Irene Gibbons.

Lentz's 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

among others.

Through her work, she 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. Despite her success, working under the

powerful set designer Cedric Gibbons while being married to his brother was not

easy. Irene confided to her close friend Doris Day that the marriage to Gibbons

was not a happy one. Generally regarded as the most important and influential

production designer in the history of American films, Cedric Gibbons hired

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.

In 1950, she left MGM to open her own fashion house. After

being out of the film industry for nearly ten years, in 1960, 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 film and during 1962 worked on her last

production, A Gathering of Eagles.

On November 15, 1962, three weeks short of her sixty-second

birthday, Lentz took room 1129 at the Knickerbocker Hotel, checking in under an

assumed name. She jumped to her death from her bathroom window at about 3 p.m.

In 2005, Irene Lentz was inducted into the Costume Designers

Guild's Anne Cole Hall of Fame.

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