Albert Wolsky, Oscar-Winning Costume Designer for ‘All That Jazz’ and ‘Bugsy,’ Dies at 95
Albert Wolsky, the French-born costume designer who won Oscars for All That Jazz and Bugsy and set hearts racing by dressing Olivia Newton-John in body-hugging black sharkskin pants and a leather jacket for Grease, has died. He was 95.
Wolsky died Saturday at his home in the Hollywood Hills, according to a friend who spoke with The Hollywood Reporter.
Across his career, Wolsky received seven Oscar nominations for costuming, dressing Meryl Streep for Sophie’s Choice (1982) — she thanked him in her best actress Oscar acceptance speech — and two members of the Cusack family: John in The Journey of Natty Gann (1985) and Joan in the Robin Williams-led Toys (1992).
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His last two noms came for his work on the Beatles-infused Across the Universe (2007) and Sam Mendes’ Revolutionary Road (2009).
He collaborated 11 times with American director Paul Mazursky, including Harry and Tonto (1974), for which Art Carney won the Oscar for best actor, and An Unmarried Woman (1978), starring Jill Clayburgh in one of her Oscar-nominated turns.
In a beautiful romantic sequence, Clayburgh steps out into the New York night wearing a glorious cape. “I thought the cape was fantastic,” Mazursky says in Sam Wasson’s 2011 book, Paul on Mazursky. “Jill was a tall woman, and the cape had something to do with making her height OK. Also, it was something she could use for these moments outside when she’s clearly fallen in love.”
The pair also worked together on Next Stop, Greenwich Village (1976), Willie & Phil (1980), Tempest (1982), Moscow on the Hudson (1984), Down and Out in Beverly Hills (1986), Moon Over Parador (1988), Enemies, A Love Story (1989), Scenes From a Mall (1991) and The Pickle (1993).
However, in Wolsky’s own words, the most important film of his decorated career was Lenny (1974), Bob Fosse’s biography of comedian Lenny Bruce that starred Dustin Hoffman.
“I really knew I had gone up one step to another level of learning and of opportunity, and it was an extraordinary job for me,” he said during a 2017 interview for the Costume Designers Guild.
The experience paid off for their next collaboration five years later, Fosse’s semi-autobiographical All That Jazz. Wolsky’s vibrant costumes, which depicted the reality and fantasy worlds of the multitalented director and choreographer’s life, nabbed him his first Oscar.
“I don’t think there was ever anything quite like him,” Wolsky said of Fosse, describing him as “intense and driven.”
For his second Oscar, Wolsky spent his budgeted $1 million for Barry Levinson’s 1940s-era Bugsy (1991) on designing ballgowns, tuxedos, silk shirts and satin ties and importing rare Italian gabardine.
On the Oscar podium, he thanked Levinson and producer-star Warren Beatty for creating an “elegant and impeccable taste and climate for us.”
But moviegoers will be forever thankful to Wolsky for putting Newton-John in those tight black pants and leather jacket as she transforms into the rebellious Sandy Olsson in Grease (1978).
In 2018, the Aussie actress vividly recalled trying out the outfit for the first time in the wardrobe trailer as Wolsky looked on.
“The jacket fit perfectly, and the red lining was great. The pants were fantastic too, but because they were actually from the ’50s, the zipper was broken, so I had to be stitched into them,” she said.
“When I walked out onto the set in them for the first time, I got quite the reaction — everyone stopped — because it was unlike anything I’d worn before. After we wrapped the film, I was lucky enough to get to keep the costume.”
Forty-one years after her cinematic breakout performance, Newton-John auctioned off that jacket for $243,000 to raise funds for her Cancer Wellness & Research Centre in Melbourne, Australia. The buyer subsequently donated it back to her.
The leather pants were bought by Spanx founder Sara Blakely for $162,500.
Most moviegoers pay little attention to the significance behind a performer’s costume on a film, but when the meticulous Wolsky began work on Mendes’ Depression-era drama Road to Perdition (2002), he encountered problems sourcing authentic overcoats and suits from 1931.
“Nobody kept those clothes, there was no reason to; they were just worn-out clothes with nothing to commend them,” he said.
The solution to replicate them wasn’t as simple as one might think. Wolsky identified that modern fabrics are far lighter than those of the 1930s and thus fell differently on an actor’s body. “The weight dramatically affects the way the clothes move,” he noted.
He hired the services of master New York weaver Rabbit Goody, who reproduced with historical accuracy the weight of the fabric, which Wolsky then dyed and aged.
Born in Paris on Nov. 24, 1930, Wolsky and his family fled to America during the German occupation of France during World War II.
He graduated from City College of New York, ran his father’s travel business for several years and began an apprenticeship under costumer Helene Pons on the 1960 Broadway production of Camelot, starring Julie Andrews and Richard Burton.
His big break into the movie business came courtesy of costume designer Theoni V. Aldredge for the Southern-set The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (1968).
For the next seven decades, his wardrobe wizardry was on display in films including The Turning Point (1977), the remakes of The Jazz Singer (1980), To Be or Not to Be (1983) and The Manchurian Candidate (2004), back-to-back comedies You’ve Got Mail (1998) and Runaway Bride (1999) — five wedding dresses were made for the latter — and the space mystery Ad Astra (2019).
For his final credit, he teamed with David O. Russell on the 2022 feature Amsterdam, set in the 1930s.
Wolsky described working with Streep on Sophie’s Choice as a cathartic experience. The film’s flashback settings in a German concentration camp mirrored what some of his family members endured. “We were the lucky ones,” he said. “We got here and a lot of our family got here, and some didn’t.”
For Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s best picture Oscar winner Birdman (2014), he convinced the director to change the time period in which the film’s Broadway play was set.
By moving the 1970s Raymond Carver production of What We Talk About When We Talk About Love to the ’50s, it helped distinguish the onstage segments from the offstage contemporary scenes.
Wolsky himself was well acquainted with Broadway, working as an assistant for legendary costume designer Ann Roth (A Case of Libel), for Mike Nichols on The Odd Couple (starring Carney and Walter Matthau), for Jerome Robbins on Fiddler on the Roof and for Jules Dassin in Illya Darling.
His solo star credits included Generation (starring Henry Fonda), Alan Arkin‘s The Sunshine Boys and Arthur Penn’s Sly Fox. In 2013, he received a Tony nomination for the revival of The Heiress.
When it came to designing dance costumes, Wolsky’s No. 1 rule was not to constrict the dancer. “The body to me is so important, so you pare things down,” he said. “You try not to hide the body, you want to feature the body so you can see a dancer’s movements and how graceful they are.”
Given the opportunity to work on the 1950s-era Grease, Wolsky envisioned a realistic urban approach to dressing the high school musical, but producer Allan Carr demanded bright, explosive colors instead.
“These people are all meant to be in high school, and yet they are colouring the gray streaks in their hair,” Wolsky recalled thinking. “Why the hell am I trying to be realistic? It’s ridiculous!’ So, we just went mad with it.”
He was granted access to three floors of fabric and stock at Paramount and ended up using colors he never used before or since.
Wolsky served four terms on the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science’s board of governors, and in 2009, he donated 83 pencil and watercolor drawings spanning his designs from 1977-2007 to its Margaret Herrick Library.
In 2015, he received the CDG’s Award for Excellence in Contemporary Film.
Wolsky’s partner of 39 years, dancer and actor James Mitchell (Palmer Cortlandt on All My Children), died in 2010.
When asked by the CDG to identify the most important aspect of his craft, Wolsky explained that it always comes back to what the story is about, “so that it’s not just a bunch of clothes, otherwise we’ve lost. I can read something, and if I don’t get any ideas, if I don’t know what to do, then I feel maybe I shouldn’t do it.”
Mike Barnes contributed to this report.
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