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Costume Designer Paul du Pont had a perfectly clear idea of how Franz Lehar's The Merry Widow should be dressed...
Watch the Color. Designer du Pont* does not usually have to depend on a tenor to get him out of the tight squeeze he puts a soprano into. Resourcefulness is merely one of the qualities needed by the costume designer for Max Liebman's NBC-TV spectaculars. In addition, he must sometimes do the impossible. Last week's The Chocolate Soldier was Du Pont's 20th spectacular of the season. This time he had ten days, instead of the more usual five, to dress the entire company for the Oscar Straus operetta, starring Risë Stevens. That...
...Designer du Pont, who looks a decade younger than his 50 years, faces his task every fortnight with the equanimity of a man who knows and loves his job. He appears at his office at 7 every morning, leaves after 7 at night. But two days before a spectacular goes on the air, he turns, up at NBC's vast Brooklyn studio at 8 a.m. for a 40-hour siege. He is equipped with a cot and icebox and, for emergencies, aspirin, Empirin, Desoxyn, phenobarbital and Dexedrine...
Emergencies are an old story to Du Pont. As a child, he sang in vaudeville with his mother. As a young man, he danced ballet. But his dancing career ended when he fell through a trap door in the Manhattan Opera House and fractured his spine. After doing the costumes for 64 Broadway shows, he went to work for Liebman on TV seven years ago at a starting salary of $50 a week (he now gets close to $500) and a costume budget per show of $250 (it now averages...
Dull the Shine. Often Du Pont does not even have time to make finished drawings, but has the bolts of cloth he orders cut and sewn from work sketches. He has two days to gather material, suits, dresses, underwear, stockings, shoes, brassières, furs and jewelry for everybody in the show from principals to walk-ons. It is the last-minute scramble that is most harrowing. Every man and woman in the show gets one fitting only. Next to the last day, they are fitted at the rate of one every 20 minutes. If anything is wrong, there...