Theatre Design & Technology - Spring 2013 - 69

in fact it enhances it and presents an additional layer of collaboration. This
practice also occurs among theatre designers but is less widely acknowledged. In both genres, it can be difficult to identify the illustrator, and Landis
and her team conducted an amazing amount of detective work. "Occasionally, an illustrator's initials are found," she writes, "perhaps coyly tickling
the toes of an actress across at the bottom of an image, an 'RR' for Robin
Richesson, for example, illustrating for designers Colleen Atwood or Joanna
Johnston, or 'TVR' for Theadora Van Runkle, illustrating for Dorothy Jeakins."
Other sketches were signed by the illustrator on the back, or not at all.
Adele Balkan, drawing for designer Charles LeMaire at 20th Century
Fox Studios, recalled that she received little recognition for her contribution
beyond being a successful illustrator: "You were hired as a sketch artist, and
you just did sketches. But I doubt very much that the designer ever showed
a sketch that he or she hadn't had some input. It was give and take there
for quite a while. But the star didn't want to know that the assistant had
designed it or the sketch artist had done it; they wanted to think the designer
had done it, naturally. And so did the head honchos. They wanted the designer who was hired to do it to do it. No one cared who did the sketch as
long as the designer did the design." Hollywood Sketchbook does much to
remedy this oversight.
After the introduction, readers-and page flippers-are introduced
to an amazing series of illustrations dating back 100 years. All captions in

the book credit costume designer and costume illustrator-such as on
page 51 for Johnny Guitar (1954, costume designer and illustrator: Sheila
O'Brien); the series of illustrations on pages 227-229 for Camelot (1967,
costume designer: John Truscott.; costume illustrator: Haleen Holt); and the
ones on page 56 for Ocean's Thirteen (2007, costume designer: Louise
Frogley; costume Illustrator: Jamie Rama). The earliest costume designs are
by Natacha Rambova, wife of Rudolf Valentino, dated 1920 for Forbidden
Fruit (1921), and the newest ones are for films just recently released.

Illustrator profiles
Profiles, in alphabetical order, are about the illustrators, whether they are
the designers themselves or the costume design illustrators. Ann Roth, Tony
Walton, Orry Kelly, Robert Kalloch, Judianna Makovsky, and Vittorio Nino
Novarese are among the many included. It is important to read the entries
and pay attention to the ones that are missing. Here's Landis on the prolific
designer Edith Head, for example: "Edith Head was a famous stick-figure
da Vinci, with an army of professional sketch artists ready to channel her
designs into polished illustration, to which she would boldly add her signature. Head's lack of skill with a paintbrush hardly hurt her career or
her confidence. Her talent was design and public relations, and she did
both brilliantly during a fifth-year career in Hollywood." Edith Head designed costumes for dozens of films and received many Academy Awards,

s p r i n g 2013

theatre design

& technology

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Theatre Design & Technology - Spring 2013