Irene Lentz
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Irene Lentz (December 8, 1900 – November 15, 1962) was a fashion designer and Hollywood studio costume designer known by her first name, "Irene."
Born in Baker, Montana, Irene Lentz started out as an actress under her birth name, appearing in secondary roles in silent films beginning with Keystone Studios in 1921. She was directed in her first film by F. Richard Jones and the two eventually began a relationship that led to a marriage that lasted until his premature death in 1930. Like almost all women of her era, she had been taught sewing as a child and with a flair for style, she decided to open a small dress shop. The success of her designs in her tiny store eventually led to an offer from the Bullocks Wilshire luxury department store to design for their Ladies Custom Salon which catered to a wealthy clientele including a number of Hollywood stars.
Irene Lentz designs at Bullocks gained her much attention in the film community and she was contracted by independent production companies to design the wardrobe for some of their productions. Billing herself simply as "Irene," her first work came in 1933 on the film Goldie Gets Along featuring her designs for star Lily Damita. However, her big break came when she was hired to create the gowns for Ginger Rogers for her 1937 film Shall We Dance with Fred Astaire. This was followed by more designs in another Ginger Rogers film as well as work for other independents such as Walter Wanger Productions, Hal Roach Studios as well as majors such as RKO, Paramount Pictures and Columbia Pictures. During the 1930s, Irene Lentz designed the film wardrobe for leading ladies such as Constance Bennett, Hedy Lamarr, Joan Bennett, Claudette Colbert, Carole Lombard, Ingrid Bergman, and Loretta Young amongst others.
Through her work, Irene Lentz met and married short story author and screenwriter Eliot Gibbons, brother of multi-Academy Award winning Cedric Gibbons, head of art direction at MGM Studios. Generally regarded as the most important and influential production designer in the history of American films, Cedric Gibbons hired Irene Lentz when gown designer Adrian left MGM to join Universal Studios, By 1943 she was a leading costume supervisor at MGM, earning international recognition for her "soufflé creations" and is remembered for her avant-garde wardrobe for Lana Turner in 1946's The Postman Always Rings Twice. In 1948, she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Costume Design, Black-and-White for B.F.'s Daughter.
Despite her success, working under a powerful and arrogant chauvinist such as Cedric Gibbons while being married to his brother was not easy and in 1950 Irene Lentz left MGM to open her own fashion house. After being out of the film industry for nearly ten years, in 1960, friend Doris Day requested her talents for the Universal Studios, production, Midnight Lace for which Lentz earned a second Academy Award nomination. The following year she did the costume design for another Doris Day film and during 1962 worked on her last production, A Gathering of Eagles.
Despondent over personal problems, three weeks short of her sixty-second birthday, Irene Lentz checked into the Knickerbocker Hotel in Los Angeles under an assumed name, where she took her own life by first cutting her wrists then jumping from the 14th floor window (In question as there are only ten floors ) . As per her wishes, she was interred next to her first husband, F. Richard Jones, in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California.
In 2005, Irene Lentz was inducted into the Costume Designers Guild's Anne Cole Hall of Fame.
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