Edith Head

Edith Claire Head (née Posener; October 28, 1897 – October 24, 1981) was an American film costume designer. She received a record 35 nominations for the Academy Award for Best Costume Design and won a record eight times, making her both the most honored and most nominated woman in the Academy's history. She also holds the Guinness World Record for most-credited costume designer in film history, with a total of 432 credits. Raised between California and Nevada, Head earned degrees from the University of California, Berkeley and Stanford University before beginning a career as a French and Spanish languages teacher. After taking courses at the Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles, she was hired in 1923 as a costume sketch artist at Famous Players–Lasky, which later became Paramount Pictures. She won acclaim for her design of Dorothy Lamour’s trademark sarong in the 1936 film The Jungle Princess, and became a household name after the Academy Award for Best Costume Design was created in 1948. Head was considered exceptional for her close working relationships with her subjects, with whom she consulted extensively; these included virtually every top female star in Hollywood. Head worked at Paramount for 44 years, and was frequently loaned out by the studio for work on projects for other studios. While under contract at Paramount, she designed the costumes for several films by Alfred Hitchcock, including Notorious (1946), Vertigo (1958), The Birds (1963), and Marnie (1964). In 1968, after Paramount declined to renew her contract, Hitchcock invited her to join Universal Pictures. There she earned her eighth and final Academy Award for her work on The Sting in 1973. Outside of film, Head was commissioned to design the official women's uniform for the United States Coast Guard in the 1970s, due to the increasing number of women in...