American costume designer (1897-1981). Birth name: Edith Claire Posener. Born in San Bernadino, California, Edith had graduated from college and was teaching school when she answered a classified ad seeking sketch artists in 1923. Though she'd primarily hoped to learn enough about art to enable her to teach a class on the subject, she was hired by Paramount Studios, eventually moving up to become the studio's head designer in 1937.
At Paramount, the small, bespectacled, and seemingly unglamourous Head had a tremendous influence on fashion, mainly because she was designing costumes for all of the studio's most important and most glamourous movies, including "All About Eve," "Sunset Boulevard," "A Place in the Sun," and hundreds of others. She worked on many of Alfred Hitchcock's films and even chose Grace Kelly's gold lamé gown she made for "To Catch a Thief" as her favorite design.
After moving to Universal in 1967, Head worked on "Sweet Charity," "Airport," "Rooster Cogburn," and others, and was loaned out to other studios to work on "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" and "The Man Who Would Be King."
By the time she died of bone marrow disease in 1981, Head had worked on almost 450 movies, from "The Legion of the Condemned" in 1928 to "Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid," which was released in 1982, after she died, and dedicated to her. She received 35 Oscar nominations and won Academy Awards for her work on "The Heiress," "Samson and Delilah," "All About Eve," "A Place in the Sun," "Roman Holiday," "Sabrina," "The Facts of Life," and "The Sting," making her the most honored woman in Academy history. She also wrote several books on fashion and designing.
Head preferred to directly consult with the actresses she was designing for -- a rarity among other designers, who were often male. As a result, she was very popular with Hollywood actresses. She also cared more about designing clothing for the characters in the film, rather than choosing outfits that would make her look fashionably fashionable. Hitchcock loved working with her, as he felt her attitudes about film and character design were closely aligned with his own.
In the 1970s, she was asked to design a woman's uniform for the United States Coast Guard, due to many more women enlisting in the Coast Guard. She received a Meritorious Public Service Award for her Coast Guard work, which she said was a highlight of her career.
Research from the Internet Movie Database (www.imdb.com)