Theadora Van Runkle, my friend

Dear Boodles

I met Theadora Van Runkle in 1998.
 
Theadora Van Runkle and Carl George, Los Angeles, 2007

I was introduced to her by my friend, the actress Diane Salinger. 

Diane Salinger

We decided that a trip to the Huntington Gardens in Pasadena would be the perfect place for Theadora and I to get to know each other. What a momentous day that was. Diane and Theadora both sporting picture hats the size of Rhode Island, we strolled arm in arm through the exquisite gardens laughing and entertaining each other with wickedly funny stories of past loves, movie memories, and life. 

 

 The Huntington Gardens, Pasadena, California

Over the ensuing 13 years, Theadora and I became close friends and spent many days and evenings together eating, talking, going to museums and movies, burrowing through junk shops, antiquing or sometimes, spending hours in her studio (an enormous converted wine vat) looking at her amazing drawings – both from her career as one of Hollywood’s preeminent costume designers and as a fine artist who produced watercolors, ink drawings and paintings.

Theadora died on Friday, November 4, 2011 in Los Angeles. She was 83 and I adored her. 

 Theadora Van Runkle, Los Angeles, 2002    Exhibition of her costume designs curated by Carl George

Theadora was one of the greats, a single mother with two children, who made it on her own, a much sought after commercial artist then, a hugely successful costume designer. 
 Her first movie was Bonnie and Clyde, 1967, for which she was nominated for an Academy Award. That in itself speaks volumes. 

 

 Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway in Bonnie and Clyde, 1967

She told me that the costume designer Dorothy Jeakins, who Theadora had sketched for, called her one day and asked if she’d be interested in doing the costumes for a “small western at Warner Brothers” that she didn’t have time to do. Theadora jumped at the opportunity and after reading the script for Bonnie and Clyde knew that it would be a great film and that she had to do it. She prepared some drawings for her interview with Warren Beatty and nervously sat in his office as he flipped through the sketches. 

 

After looking at them, even though he thought they were brilliant, Warren still had some trepidation, he being a insecure first time director and she having no feature film experience. Warren said, “I’m sorry but I think I have to go with someone who has more experience.” Theadora told me that she leaped from her seat and grabbed Warren by the shoulders and screamed “I have to do this film!!”. He was so taken aback by her enthusiasm, (and probably scared to death by this mad woman), that he decided to give her a chance and so, with that decision, film history was made.

 

Theadora told me that while researching news archives about the real Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow she discovered after they’d robbed a few banks, Bonnie ordered their clothes through the Marshall Field’s catalog. Theadora knew at that moment that they could be fashionable, so she ran with it.

One journalist called Faye Dunaway in long pencil skirts, tight cable-knit sweaters and a beret “Dustbowl Chic”. Young Karl Lagerfeld did exact copies of the knit sweater for his 1968 fall collection for Chloe. And Roger Ebert in his review of the film said, “Theodora Van Runkle's berets and maxi skirts for Dunaway started a global fashion craze.”

Theadora received two more Academy Award nominations, for “The Godfather: Part II” (1974), starring Al Pacino, and “Peggy Sue Got Married” (1986), starring Kathleen Turner. 

 

 Sketch of Robert DeNiro as young Vito Corleone

 

Formal gown design for Mama Carmella Corleone

Costume design for Fredo at the Tahoe Party - The Godfather II

 Costume design for young Carmella being presented to Vito Corleone. The Godfather II

Robert DeNiro / Vito Corleone's wedding suit design for The Godfather II

She created costume designs for dozens of seminal films over the decades and worked with most of the big stars of the ‘70’s and ‘80’s including Julie Andrews in S.O.B.

Liza Minnelli and Robert DeNiro in New York, New York

 

Liza Minnelli making a grand entrance in New York, New York.

Steve McQueen in Bullit, The Reivers and The Thomas Crowne Affair

 

 Steve McQueen looking dapper and Faye Dunaway the height of Mod in The Thomas Crowne Affair

 

 

 Al Pacino and Diane Keaton in The Godfather II. All of the men's suits were hand tailored in Hollywood and the shoes and hats custom made all based on Theadora's designs.

 

 A handsome young Al Pacino impeccably dressed as Michael Corleone in The Godfather II.

 Steve Martin and Bernadette Peters in The Jerk

Raquel Welch in Myra Breckenridge

One day I asked Theadora about Lucille Ball and what she was like to work with. Theadora did the costumes for Lucy in the television production of Mame – a critical bomb and a camp classic with fantastic costumes. She told me that the budget was endless – Lucy being one of the most powerful and wealthy people in Hollywood. She showed Lucy her designs for the costumes. Lucy said, in her tough attitude, Chesterfields cigarettes and scotch on the rocks voice, “Yeah, they’re good. Have them made over at ABC Studios.” Theadora countered, “But I have my workshop at Warner Brothers.” “No”, demanded Lucy. “You’ll make them with my girls at ABC. They won’t give you any lip.”

 

 

 

 

Bea Arthur as Vera Charles in Mame  

The girls in The Best Little Whorehouse In Texas

 

 

Peter Sellers in I Love You Alice B. Toklas

Deborah Kerr and Kirk Douglas, Warren Beatty and most famously Faye Dunaway in Bonnie and Clyde, The Thomas Crowne Affair and The Arrangement by Elia Kazan. 

Faye Dunaway in The Thomas Crowne Affair

 

 Faye Dunaway in The Thomas Crowne Affair

Four different looks for Faye Dunaway in The Thomas Crowne Affair

And those are just a few of the films she designed for!

When I asked Theadora about the scenes in The Godfather II where hundreds of extras playing immigrants from the four corners of the world arrive in New York harbor and how she dressed them in culturally authentic costumes, she told me that every piece was designed and made in her workshops at Warner Brothers – “every babushka.”

 
 Ellis Island scene from The Godfather II.
 
 Wardrobe and makeup department adding final touches in The Godfather II.


 Young Vito Corleone arrives in New York harbor in The Godfather II.

Her costume designs won accolades around the world in the fashion, film and theater industries, but I knew her as a dear friend, antiquing buddy, great cook, a fine artist – an incredible painter and drawer with exemplary skills, endless art history knowledge and a voracious reader of classic literature. We talked for hours about artists that we loved, art movements - which were are personal favorites, color, theme, proportion, and perspective.

 

 Theadora Van Runkle and Carl George at a rooftop birthday party in Beverly Hills, California. 2003

 We started to write letters to each other because we both thought it was a lost art and that it would be fun. Our correspondence spanned many years where we talked about absolutely everything – me in my “swirling Baroque epistolary” – and her, in an inimitable Rococo script drawn with calligraphic pens telling stories with the wry and ribald sense of humor that was her trademark. Theadora loved my writing and encouraged me to continue. I’ve kept all of the letters and will now, over time, include excerpts from these letters as part of my blog “Dear Boodles”. 

 Carl George in the Laurel Canyon home of Theadora Van Runkle, Los Angeles, 2007

 And, by the way, the blog title Dear Boodles comes from our all-time favorite gin Boodles – the preferred gin of Churchill and all those other old British queens from the House Of Lords who languish, doing nothing all day but drinking in their wood paneled clubs in Mayfair. We devised dozens of variations on the name including Boodell, Bodellina, Boodelicious, Boodacious, Boodarling etc. and included at least one of these monikers in each letter.

 Theadora Van Runkle in her exquisite Laurel Canyon home. Los Angeles, 2007

Her son Max and I remain close. He is expertly cataloging all of her costume designs, which will reside in the permanent collection of the Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences, her illustrations and hundreds of individual artworks for future publication and exhibition. I look forward to the day when I can curate the first New York exhibition of the great Theadora Van Runkle’s artwork.