CLOTHES FOR STARS

Dominion, Volume 26, Issue 220, 13 June 1933, Page 5

CLOTHES FOR STARS

Hollywood Dress Designer In Wellington

EX-ACTOR' AND ARTIST ’

“Hollywood originates fully as many styles as Paris,” said Mr. Orry-Kelly, a leading dress designer fpr motion picture stars, to a “Dominion” reporter yesterday morning. Mr. Orry-Kelly is passing through Wellington on his way back to the United States from Sydney, and is a passenger in the Makura. He is a big handsome Irishman, with a distinguished streak of white’ running through his clipped black hair.

“My name,” he said “is my own. No fake. My father was a Manxman, and my mother half Irish and half French. American? No; Australian!”

This artist, whose word is law in one of the largest film studios in Hollywood, and whose designs are copied from one end of the civilised world to the other, has an interesting tale to tell of his rise to fame.

“I first went into the profession in Sydney," he said, “and played small parts for Williamson's and Fuller’s; but I was no good; in fact, so bad they decided to do without me.” He then started painting; studied portrait

work under an artist named Cocks; and then had a studio of his own. He thought It seemed all right, so he finally decided to go to New York, where for a time he struggled alone.

Among the “Four Hundred.”

Eventually success dawned, and he began to do murals for homes along Park Avenue. It took a lot of time, and though the cheques poured in, the incidental social side of life accounted for most of the dollars they represented. Long Beach was expensive, and all the money went.

“But’l don’t regret the experience. I met some marvellous people; many of New York’s famous ‘Four Hundred’ — and had a great time,” he said. The young artist then decided to go in for stage work. He designed some costumes for George White and Florenz Ziegfield, and ' then he scored a triumph, for he designed all the dresses for Ethel Barrymore’s four most recent plays; some of them modern ; some 'period.’ When the Wall Street crash came he decided to move off and try for pictures. It seemed to him that if Ethel Barrymore had approved of his work —the greatest stage star—there should be a chance with Ruth Chatterton. So he drifted over to Hollywood. “Here I found out all about it,” he continued. “You can mean everything in New York and nothing in Hollywood. I had to start all over again. The stage doesn’t count with picture people.” He gave six months to study. He saw everything he could, and realised the mistakes made in the technicaltles of costume. “The screen is funny; makes people look four times bigger, and dresses' that will do on the ordinary stage are all out on the pictures.” Ruth Chatterton’s “O.K.

Finally Mr. Orry-Kelly wrote some constructive criticism, which eventually, slipping its way through lines of red tape, reached Miss Chatterton. Her remark was characteristic; the same she is supposed to have made to her second husband. “Where,” she cried, “Where have you been all my life?” So “on her O.K.’’, as the artist put it, Warner Bros, signed him on for a flve-years’ contract. Other stars for whom he designs now are Kay Francis (“whom I’d iillinired always,”), Barbara Stnnwlck, Loretta Young, Joan Blondell and Betty Davis. “The reason for my success in designing for the screen,” said Mr. OrryKelly in conclusion, “lies, I consider, in the fact that everything I make is practical and in good taste. Dresses worn by the stars can be copied and worn by women in their own homes, or for any ordinary occasion. If an extreme costume is needed for a special part, of course it has to be extreme; but plain, well-cut, perfectly constructed modern clothes are the usual aim.”