Biography for
Edith Head

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Date of Birth

28 October 1897, San Bernadino, California, USA

Date of Death

24 October 1981, Los Angeles, California, USA (bone marrow disease)

Birth Name

Edith Claire Posener

Height

5' 1½" (1.56 m)

Spouse

Wiard Ihnen	(1949 - 22 June 1979) (his death)
Charles Head	(25 July 1923 - 1938) (divorced)

Trivia

Her 35 Oscar nominations and 8 awards make her both the most honored costume designer and woman in Academy Award history to date.

Interred at Forest Lawn, Glendale, California, USA, in the Cathedral Slope section, plot #1675.

Rarely did her own sketching because of her time schedule. Almost all sketches of "hers" one sees today were actually done by a devoted staff of sketch artists.

During the 1920s, she taught French and art at the Hollywood School for Girls.

On They Might Be Giants' 2001 album, "Mink Car", there is a song called "She Thinks She's Edith Head".

Was a close friend of actress Anne Baxter. She was godmother to one of Baxter's children.

A photograph of Miss Head working on a dress design appears on one stamp of a sheet of 10 USA 37¢ commemorative postage stamps, issued 25 February 2003, celebrating American Filmmaking: Behind the Scenes. The stamp honors costume design.

Received a master's degree in French from Stanford University in 1920

The Costume Department building on the Paramount lot is named after her.

The character "Edna Mode" in Disney/Pixar's The Incredibles (2004) was modeled on her.

Extremely diplomatic, she went out of her way to get along with co-workers and rarely gossiped. In later interviews, however, she mentioned that she did not enjoy working with Mary Martin, Claudette Colbert or Hedy Lamarr. In Paulette Goddard's case, she thought it was insensitive for the glamorous star to bring her bulging jewelry boxes to the studio workroom and tell her seamstresses (who were working for minimum wage) that they could "look, but not touch.".

Her trademark "sunglasses" were not "sunglasses" but rather blue lensed glasses. Looking through a blue glass was a common trick of costumers in the days of Black and White film to get a sense of how a color would photograph. Edith had a pair of glasses made out of the proper shade of blue glass to save herself from looking through a single lens. Her friends commonly would see her in regular "clear" glasses.

She is tied with composer Alan Menken for third most Academy Awards won. Each of them have eight.

Biography in: "The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives". Volume One, 1981-1985, pages 376-378. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1998.

Alumnae Initiate of Delta Zeta sorority, Mu chapter.

Personal Quotes

I've designed films I've never seen.

If it is a Paramount film, I probably designed it.

What a costume designer does is a cross between magic and camouflage. We create the illusion of changing the actors into what they are not. We ask the public to believe that every time they see a performer on the screen he's become a different person.

I have yet to see one competely unspoiled star, except for Lassie.

You can lead a horse to water and you can even make it drink, but you can't make actresses wear what they don't want to wear.

[1977 comment on Jacqueline Bisset] One of the greatest bodies I've ever worked with. But besides that she is rather the opposite, because she is so damned intelligent. It's a strange combination, almost a double personality.

[on Grace Kelly] I've dressed thousands of actors, actresses and animals, but whenever I am asked which star is my personal favorite, I answer, "Grace Kelly." She is a charming lady, a most gifted actress and, to me, a valued friend.

[on Kim Novak] I don't usually get into battles, but dressing Kim Novak for her role in Alfred Hitchcock's "Vertigo" put to the test all my training in psychology.

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