A few days ago on this page, I reference the drawing on the left, which is a dress design for Laura Petrie that has been attributed to legendary Hollywood costumer Edith Head. Since Id never seen the sketch until it surfaced in a Hollywood memorabilia auction a few years ago, it struck me as a bit of a mystery. And the more I examined it, the curiouser it seemed. First of all, although the drawing is labeled Laura Petrie--even if the name IS slightly misspelled--the face on the model in the drawing looks nothing like Mary Tyler Moore. In fact, she looks a lot more like Lucille Ball, who just happened to be The Dick Van Dyke Shows Desilu landlord in those days, and for whom Edith Head frequently contributed very similar costume sketches for the redheads sitcom The Lucy Show. My first assumption was that this had to be a costume concept sketch that the costumer created before Mary Tyler Moore was hired, which would explain the use of Lucys face as a kind of placeholder until the role was cast. The only problem with that theory is that the drawing clearly indicates that its intended to be used in Scene 2. But, if the sketch was made before Mary was cast, that would mean it had tove been intended for the pilot episode--yet no where in that episode does Laura wear anything even vaguely similar to that design. Not only that, the second scene of the shows pilot takes place in the writers office--with Laura nowhere in site. So, I decided, the drawing mustve been created for a later show. But since I have no eye for costume details, I turned to uber-Van Dyke Show fan Greg Williams, who is a regular contributor to this page. It took him a couple of weeks, but Greg managed to dig up the scene in which Laura wears this dress by going into the Petries basement. Yeah, you guessed it, Laura finally shows up wearing the dress Ms. Head designed for her in Your Home Sweet Home is My Home, the fourth season episode thats better known as the show in which Rob and Laura reveal they have a giant rock in their cellar. How Edith Head came to create an apparent one-off design for the show in its fourth year still isnt exactly clear. But I have a theory. Since the costume legend routinely knocked off similar designs for her old friend Lucille Balls Lucy Carmichael character on The Lucy Show, which was being filmed around the same time as The Dick Van Dyke Show, its not too hard to imagine Lucy loaning her costumer to her sister Desilu series. As for why the show would desire an Edith Head design for this particular episode, I can only guess--especially since the designers taste in ladies wear didnt exactly jibe with the young and casual Laura that Mary Tyler Moore embodied. However, when you consider that the scene in which Laura wears this somewhat old- fashioned outfit was a flashback set in a period seven or eight years in the past, it all starts to add up. Who better to create a dated but attractive outfit for Laura than a costumer whod won Oscars for dressing women of a certain age? Final question is why, if the drawing was created four years into the shows run, when Mary Tyler Moore was well-established in the role, did the artists Laura still look so much like Lucy? My best guess--sheer laziness on the part of the designer, whod been cranking out similar costumes for Lucys show, and may have seen no reason to alter the standard face for a drawing that would presumably only be seen by a crew of dress cutters who were presumably paying little attention the models face anyway. Obviously, these explanations involve a certain amount of guesswork. But no more than the face on this drawing.
Posted on: Thu, 13 Nov 2014 02:39:29 +0000
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