Film and Radio Guide (Oct 1945-Jun 1946)

52 FILM AND RADIO GUIDE Volume XII, No. 1 BEHIND THE SCREEN CREDITS BY HELEN COLTON Copyright 1945, Helen Colton One of the most painstaking jobs in the picture business is the designing of screen clothes. Most new movie personalities are sold to the public on their appearance, not their acting ability, so you can see how important a screen wardrobe can be to Gertie Glamour, who has to look simply “out of this world” to get sighs and fan mail from an admiring public. In all Hollywood, there are only about a dozen or so top clothes designers, people who actually get their names on the screen. Theirs is a rather e.xclusive, small circle into which admittance is gained only by resignation of one of its members. But working under this select few are about 25 or 30 people who are known as Associate Designers, among whom are undoubtedly the Irenes, Vera Wests, Edith Heads, Travis Bantons, Adrians, and Edward Stevensons of the future. One of these people is Eleanor Behm, an outstanding young designer, who came to Hollywood from New York five years ago to design for the screen. Like most other young people who come here from various parts of the country, seeking jobs of one sort or another, Eleanor didn’t know a soul in Hollywood. Letters to costume companies — “make them brief and to the point,” she advises — and followup phone calls got her an appointment with a man at Western Costume Company. No opening there, but it got her an introduction to Edward Stevenson, head designer at RKO, who recommended her to Vera West Eleanor Behm at Universal. There, she went to work as a sketch artist. The job of sketch artist exists because many designers, whose ideas are wonderful, can’t draw even as well as a kindergarten doodler. So they give their ideas orally to a sketcher who interprets those ideas on paper on an actual figure. While there aren’t many such jobs, since each designer needs only one sketch artist, and some designers do their own sketching, it’s about the best way to break into fashion designing. The artist is in close touch with everything that goes on in the designing department. Several of today’s head designers, like Eddie Stevenson of RKO and Edith Head of Paramount, worked their way up from sketching. After a year, Eleanor Behm, who had sold fashion designs to wholesale dress manufacturers, to department stores, and to syndicated fashion columns in New York, felt she had served enough of an apprenticeship and knew enough about the business to strike out on her own. Since then, she has worked as a free-lance designer for MGM, RKO, Universal, Arnold Pressburger, Fritz Lang, and Andrew Stone productions. Right now she’s doing a big Technicolor picture, “Concerto,” for Frank Borzage (Republic). Her agent, Joe Berger, who keeps in touch with the requirements at various studios, tells her where there may be an opening and arranges an interview for her with the head designer or producer. Or she may learn of an opening herself and follow it up. When calling for an interview, Eleanor takes along sketches of her work, of course. She usually shows some modern clothes, including daytime dresses, suits, and evening gowns, perhaps two or three of each. Since she happens also to be good at historical and musical costumes, she includes some of those, too. However, not all designers are good at all types of clothes. Some are known for modern clothes, others for historical or musical costumes. “If you don’t do all three well,” Eleanor advises, “take along samples only of things you can do well. A lot of mediocre designs can spoil the impression of two or three good ones.” There are two rules she stresses in relation to the interview. “First, your own appearance. Be an advertisement for the kind of work you do,” she says. “If the designer thinks you look well-groomed and smart, naturally, he gets the idea you can make his stars look that way, too.”