Title: Dorothy Jeakins Papers
Inclusive Dates: 1938-1973

Creator:

• Jeakins, Dorothy, 1914-

Call Number: U.S. Mss 42AN; Tape 519A

Quantity: 7.4 c.f. (3 archives boxes and 11 flat boxes) and 1 tape recording

Repository:

Wisconsin Historical Society Archives / Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research
Contact Information

Archival Locations:

COLLECTION MAY BE STORED OFF-SITE: see catalog entry to request materials and for additional information.

Wisconsin Historical Society (Map)

Abstract:

Papers of an Academy Award winning costume designer for motion pictures, theater, and television, including notes, costume sketches, workbooks with attached cloth swatches, photographs and transparencies of costume sketches, and a few wardrobe plots and information on costume costs. There are also a few letters, programs, and reviews.

Language: English

URL to cite for this finding aid: http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/wiarchives.uw-whs-us0042an

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Dorothy Jeakins, costume designer for motion pictures, theater, and television, was born in San Diego, California on January 11, 1914. Her father, George Tyndall Jeakins, was a stockbroker, and her mother, Sophia Maria (von Kempf) Jeakins was a designer. In 1931 Jeakins graduated from Fairfax High School in Los Angeles; in 1934 she graduated from the Otis Art Institute of Los Angeles.

Jeakins began her professional career by designing the costumes for the film Dr. Rhythm (1938). She received Academy Awards for her costumes for Joan of Arc (1948) and Night of the Iguana (1964) and shared the award with Edith Head, Elois Jenssen, Gile Steele, and Gwen Wakeling for the costumes in Samson and Delilah in 1949. She also received Academy Award nominations for her work on The Children's Hour (1961), The Music Man (1962), The Sound of Music (1965), Hawaii (1966), and The Way We Were (1973). Her other screen credits include The Greatest Show on Earth (1951), Stars and Stripes Forever (1952), My Cousin Rachel (1952), Niagara (1952), Three Coins in the Fountain (1954), The Ten Commandments (1954), Friendly Persuasion (1956), South Pacific (1957), Green Mansions (1958), Elmer Gantry (1960), The Fool Killer (1965), Finian's Rainbow (1968), True Grit (1969), The Molly Maguires (1969), Little Big Man (1970), Young Frankenstein (1975), and On Golden Pond (1981).

Jeakins has been equally active in the theater in New York and in California, and for the American Shakespeare Festival. Her New York theater credits include King Lear (1950), Too Late the Phalarope (1956), Major Barbara (1956), Taming of the Shrew (1957), Winesburg, Ohio (1958), The World of Suzie Wong (1958), Cue for Passion (1958), A Taste of Honey (1960), My Mother, My Father and Me (1963), Crystal and Fox (1970), Who's Happy Now (1970), and Othello (1971). In California she designed the costumes for Kiss Me Kate (1955); touring productions of Showboat (1960) and Carousel (1963); and for a Los Angeles Civic Light Opera production of The Sound of Music (1972). In addition she has designed the costumes for ten productions for the Theatre Group at UCLA. She has also designed the costumes for more than nine of the productions of the American Shakespeare Festival, Stratford, Connecticut, including The Taming of the Shrew (1956), Romeo and Juliet (1959), The Winter's Tale (1959), and All's Well That Ends Well (1959).

For television she has designed costumes for productions on ABC and CBS including Mayerling (1956), The Danny Kaye Show, and the play “Misalliance” presented on Playhouse 90.

In 1962 a Guggenheim Fellowship enabled her to live in Japan for a year and study Japanese theatrical costumes. In 1964 Jeakins did the documentary research for Voyage to America for the U.S. Pavilion at the New York World's Fair.

Jeakins is married and has two sons. As of 1974 the family resided in Santa Barbara, California.

The papers have been arranged by genre in the categories MOTION PICTURES, TELEVISION, THEATER, MISCELLANEOUS DESIGNS, and GENERAL and thereunder are arranged alphabetically by title.

The papers, 1938-1973, document her career as a costume designer for motion pictures, television and theater. In general the materials represent the work Jeakins did as chief costume designer for a production; collaborative efforts for which she received credit such as Samson and Delilah (1949), The Greatest Show on Earth (1951), My Cousin Rachel (1952), Niagara (1952), and The Ten Commandments (1954) are not represented. The documentation predominantly consists of notes and watercolor sketches, some of which have fabric swatches attached. The notes analyze the costuming needs for individual characters and specific scenes. However, in only a few instances do both notes and sketches exist for the same production. Also included are some photographs, wardrobe plots, estimated costs, and cast lists. The collection also includes a taped interview, 1968, on the role of the costume designer in the making of a motion picture.

The MOTION PICTURES series consists of notes and sketches. In some cases photographs and transparencies of the original sketches also are included. Green Mansions (1959), Hawaii (1966), The Molly Maguires (1968), and Oliver (1968) are the titles most heavily documented. The Music Man (1962), The Sound of Music (1965), and The Way We Were (1973) files contain extensive notes with swatches. Of special significance is the workbook from Joan of Arc (1948), a production for which Jeakins won an Academy Award. The workbook contains annotated sketches, photographs, clippings, and notes. Materials for Friendly Persuasion (1956), South Pacific (1957), or True Grit (1969) are not included in the collection; also absent is material for films produced after 1973 for which she designed costumes such as Young Frankenstein (1975), North Dallas Forty (1979), The Postman Always Rings Twice (1981), and On Golden Pond (1981).

TELEVISION work consists primarily of costume sketches for Mayerling, The Danny Kaye Show, and Playhouse 90's “Misalliance.” For Mayerling there is also a cast list, wardrobe plot, and estimated costume costs.

The THEATER series includes notes and/or costume sketches with fabric swatches for seven New York productions and four California productions. The most thoroughly documented productions include Annie Get Your Gun, Carousel, Othello, Showboat, and The World of Suzie Wong. The only material on her work with the American Shakespeare Festival consists of a review of the play All's Well That Ends Well and a copy of Jeakins' article “Comments on Costuming Shakespeare.”

MISCELLANEOUS DESIGNS consists of sketches with no supporting documentation or for which the titling information on the piece refers to an unknown production.

GENERAL PAPERS consists of congratulatory letters after she received her Academy Award in 1965 for The Night of the Iguana, reviews and articles that refer to her work, playbills, and miscellaneous material. The miscellany includes advertising material for exhibits of her sketches at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, a credits list, and notes on an interview with Jeakins. The letters in the correspondence file are all brief except for an undated letter from John Houseman that concerns his performance in King Lear.

Acquisition Information

Presented by Dorothy Jeakins, Santa Barbara, California, 1962 and 1973. Accession Number: MCHC61-078, MCHC73-109

Processing Information

Processed by S. Heili and Eleanor McKay, 1974; Grace Hayek and Menzi Behrnd-Klodt, 1986; and Brenda Spychalla, 1991.

U.S. Mss 42AN	Series: Motion Pictures
Box   1 Folder   1	Catch 22(1969), Notes with swatches
Box   3 Folder   1	Dr. Rhythm(1938), Sketch
Box   3 Folder   2	Elmer Gantry(1960), Sketches
Box   3 Folder   7	Exodus, Sketch Note: Transferred from Head Papers.
Box   1 Folder   2	Finian's Rainbow(1968), Notes with swatches
	The Fool Killer(1965)
Box   1 Folder   3	Notes
Box   3 Folder   3	Sketches
	Green Mansions(1959)
Box   3 Folder   4	Sketches
Box   1 Folder   4	Transparencies of sketches
	Hawaii(1966)
Box   1 Folder   5-5A	Notes with swatches
Box   1 Folder   6-9	Photographs of sketches
Box   3 Folder   5-6	Sketches with swatches
Box   5 Folder   1	Sketches, continued
Box   1 Folder   10	The Iceman Cometh(1973), Notes
Box   1 Folder   11	Joan of Arc(1948), Workbook
Box   5 Folder   2	Let's Make Love(1960), Sketches with swatches
	Little Big Man(1970)
Box   1 Folder   12	Photographs of sketches
Box   4 Folder   1	Sketches
	The Molly Maguires(1968)
Box   2 Folder   1	Notes with swatches
Box   2 Folder   2	Photographs of sketches
Box   2 Folder   3-3A	The Music Man(1962), Notes with swatches
Box   2 Folder   4	Night of the Iguana(1964), Notes with swatches
	Oliver(1968)
Box   2 Folder   5-6	Notes with swatches
Box   6	Sketches with swatches
Box   7 Folder   1	Sketches, continued
Box   2 Folder   7	Reflections in a Golden Eye(1967), Notes with swatches
Box   2 Folder   8-8A	The Sound of Music(1965), Notes with swatches
Box   3 Folder   8-9	The Ten Commandments, Sketches Note: Transferred from Head Papers.
Box   2 Folder   9	The Way We Were(1972), Notes with swatches
	Series: Television	⇧
Box   7 Folder   2	Danny Kaye Show(undated), Sketches with swatches
	Mayerling(1956)
Box   2 Folder   10	Cast list, estimated costs, estimated, wardrobe plot
Box   7 Folder   3	Sketches with swatches
Box   8 Folder   1	Playhouse 90, “Misalliance” (undated), Sketches
	Series: Theater	⇧
	All's Well That Ends Well(1959)
Box   2 Folder   11	“Comments on Costuming Shakespeare” by DJ, review, and clipping
	Annie Get Your Gun(195?)
Box   2 Folder   12	Notes with swatches, wardrobe plot
Box   8 Folder   2-4	Sketches with swatches
Box   9 Folder   1-2	Sketches, continued
Box   9 Folder   3-4	Carousel(1963), Sketches with swatches
Box   4 Folder   2	King Lear(1950), Sketches
Box   10 Folder   1-2	Kiss Me Kate(1955), Sketches with swatches
Box   10 Folder   3	Major Barbara(1956), Sketches with swatches
Box   11 Folder   1	Oklahoma(undated), Sketch
Box   11 Folder   2-4	Othello(1971), Sketches with swatches
	Showboat(1960)
Box   2 Folder   13	Notes with swatches
Box   12 Folder   1-3	Sketches with swatches
Box   13 Folder   1	Sound of Music(1972), Sketches with swatches
Box   13 Folder   2	Taste of Honey(1960), Sketch
	Too Late the Phalarope(1956)
Box   2 Folder   14	Photographs, research
Box   13 Folder   3	Sketches with swatches
Box   13 Folder   4	Winesburg, Ohio(1958), Sketches with swatches
Box   13 Folder   5	The World of Suzie Wong(1958), Sketches with swatches
	Series: Miscellaneous Designs	⇧
Box   2 Folder   15	Photographs of unidentified sketches Note: See also the WCFTR name file.
	Unidentified sketches
Box   13 Folder   6	“Dancer in the Manner of Callot,” undated
Box   13 Folder   6	“Foz, Jack Cole”?, undated
Box   13 Folder   6	“Jud and Ballet Jud,” undated, with swatch
Box   4 Folder   3	Louis Armstrong at O'Roon, undated
Box   4 Folder   3	Silver Hall, “Dominicans,” undated
Tape 519A	Interview on role of costume designer in the making of a motion picture, 1968 Note: Taped on the set of The Molly Maguires.
U.S. Mss 42AN	Series: General Papers	⇧
Box   14 Folder   1	Correspondence, 1965, undated
Box   14 Folder   2	Playbills
Box   14 Folder   3	Reviews and publicity, 1950-1972
Box   14 Folder   4	Miscellany