Word for Word

21 Jul 2015

Two Australian Greats – Gillian Armstrong and Orry-Kelly

Arts, LGBTI Community, Society & Culture

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leader-armstrong Orry-Kelly was a Hollywood legend, his costume designs adored by cinema’s greatest leading ladies – but in his home country of Australia his achievements remained unknown. Now acclaimed director Gillian Armstrong is bringing the legend home and celebrating the life of this extraordinary Aussie in her new film, Women He’s Undressed.

Gillian Armstrong joins Dean Beck to discuss her formative years in the Australian Film Industry and what is was that captured her interest in Orry-Kelly.

During the boom years of Hollywood he was the costume designer on an astonishing 282 motion pictures. He designed for the stars like Marilyn Monroe, Bette Davis, Humphrey Bogart, Rosalind Russell, Errol Flynn and many more of the immortals. His films included Some Like It Hot, Casablanca, An American in Paris and Now, Voyager.

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Orry was as big a legend behind the scenes as the on-screen legends he adoringly dressed. Talented, daring, brash, bold, the toast of Hollywood yet the thorn in the side of many a studio head and the first Australian to win three Academy Awards – But who was Orry-Kelly and how could he be so unknown in his homeland?

He was outrageous, witty, outspoken and uncompromising and he survived partially protected by his friendship with Jack and Ann Warner and gossip columnist Hedda Hopper, and ultimately by his extraordinary talent.

Gillian’s doco features interviews with screen and fashion icons Jane Fonda, Angela Lansbury, June Dally-Watkins , costume designers Catherine Martin, Ann Roth, Kym Barrett, Michael Wilkinson, Deborah Nadoolman Landis, Hollywood identities and historians including director/producer Eric Sherman, Hollywood fixer Scotty Bowers, Leonard Maltin, David Chierichetti, Marc Eliot, William J Mann, Jean Mathison, Larry McQueen and Barbara Warner Howard (daughter of Ann & Jack Warner).

WOMEN HE’S UNDRESSED

The extraordinary Hollywood story of Australia’s Orry-Kelly