Howard Greer
Howard Greer ( born April 16, 1886 in Rushville, Illinois, † April 7, 1974 in Culver City, California ) was an American fashion designer and costume designer in film.
Life
Howard Greer was on a farm in Rushville, Illinois, born in 1886 and later attended the High School and the College in Lincoln, Nebraska. After graduating from the University of Nebraska in 1916, he began his career as a fashion illustrator for Lady Duff Gordon's fashion house Lucile Ltd.. in Chicago and was also responsible for the branch in New York later. In World War I he served as a soldier in France, where in Paris he worked for Lucile, but also for Paul Poiret and Edward Molyneux later. The next three years he remained in Europe, made costumes for the Paris and London theater and was a regular contributor on fashion for the Theatre Magazine. In 1921 he returned to the United States back, closed in New York at first the fashion house Hickson Inc. and was subsequently responsible for the costumes of the Greenwich Village Follies. Their Hollywood Revue made attention to him, after which he was employed from 1923 as chief designer at Famous Players - Lasky. There he created costumes for Cecil B. DeMille's monumental silent film The Ten Commandments ( The Ten Commandments, 1923), as well as silent film star Pola Negri in films such as The Spanish Dancer (The Spanish Dancer, 1923) and Ernst Lubitsch's The Forbidden Paradise (Forbidden Paradise, 1924 ). At Greer's assistant at the time included Travis Banton and Edith Head who had a very successful later as an independent costume designer in Hollywood.
After a few years Greer left the film studio, emerged from the later Paramount Pictures, to devote himself entirely to his own fashion salon for Haute Couture, he opened near the Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles in 1927. His clients included numerous movie stars like Greta Garbo and Rita Hayworth, for whom he designed exclusive evening and cocktail dresses. Over the years he has been isolated of RKO Pictures, charged repeatedly for film productions, including as a costume designer, so also Katharine Hepburn for costumes in Howard Hawks ' comedy Bringing Up Baby ( Bringing Up Baby, 1938). For the four - Irene Dunne movies Restless Love ( Love Affair, 1939), When Tomorrow Comes (1939 ) My favorite wife ( My Favorite Wife, 1940) and Unfinished Business (1941 ), he joined also as a costume designer in appearance. Even Ingrid Bergman's costumes in Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbound ( Spellbound, 1945) come from him.
In 1951 he published his autobiography under the title Designing times. Until 1962 he remained the Haute Couture connected. Then he withdrew into retirement, which he spent in London. He died in 1974 in Culver City, and was interred in the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles.
Filmography (selection)
Costumes: