Renié Conley (July 31, 1901 − June 12, 1992), professionally called simply Renié, was a prominent

Hollywood Hollywood usually refers to: * Hollywood, Los Angeles, a neighborhood in California * Hollywood, a metonym for the cinema of the United States Hollywood may also refer to: Places United States * Hollywood District (disambiguation) * Hollywood ...

costume designer A costume designer is a person who designs costumes for a film, stage production or television show. The role of the costume designer is to create the characters' outfits or costumes and balance the scenes with texture and colour, etc. The costum ...

Biography

Born Irene Brouillet in Republic, Washington, Renié studied at

Chouinard Art Institute The Chouinard Art Institute was a professional art school founded in 1921 by Nelbert Chouinard, Nelbert Murphy Chouinard (1879–1969) in the Westlake, Los Angeles, Westlake neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. In 1961, Walt Disney, Walt and ...

and the

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. For over three decades, she was noted for clothing the stars in subtle, elegant outfits, such as the eponymous dresses that

Ginger Rogers Ginger Rogers (born Virginia Katherine McMath; July 16, 1911 – April 25, 1995) was an American actress, dancer and singer during the Classical Hollywood cinema, Golden Age of Hollywood. She won an Academy Award for Best Actress for her starri ...

wore as the glamorous all-American working girl in '' Kitty Foyle'' (1940). She got her start designing theatre sets and then began working as a sketch artist for

Paramount Pictures Paramount Pictures Corporation, commonly known as Paramount Pictures or simply Paramount, is an American film production company, production and Distribution (marketing), distribution company and the flagship namesake subsidiary of Paramount ...

. In 1937, she became a costume designer for

RKO Pictures RKO Radio Pictures Inc., commonly known as RKO Pictures or simply RKO, is an American film production and distribution company, historically one of the major film studios, "Big Five" film studios of Cinema of the United States, Hollywood's Clas ...

. She remained with the studio, attiring its biggest stars, until the 1950s, when she started freelancing. In 1963, Renié's costumes for the epic ''

Cleopatra Cleopatra VII Thea Philopator (; The name Cleopatra is pronounced , or sometimes in both British and American English, see and respectively. Her name was pronounced in the Greek dialect of Egypt (see Koine Greek phonology). She was ...

'' earned her an

Oscar Oscar, OSCAR, or The Oscar may refer to: People and fictional and mythical characters * Oscar (given name), including lists of people and fictional characters named Oscar, Óscar or Oskar * Oscar (footballer, born 1954), Brazilian footballer ...

for costume design and four other nominations. She also designed the costumes for the 1942 film ''

A Date with the Falcon ''A Date with the Falcon'' ( ''The Gay Falcon Steps In'' and ''A Date With Murder'') is the second in a series of 16 films about the suave detective nicknamed The Falcon. The 1942 sequel features many of the same characters as the first film, ''T ...

'' and the 1943 ''

The Falcon and the Co-eds ''The Falcon and the Co-eds'' is a 1943 film directed by William Clemens, and produced by Maurice Geraghty, the same team that had worked on '' The Falcon in Danger'' (1943) and would stay together for the next film in the Falcon series (this e ...

''. In addition to films, Renié's work can be seen on such television series as '' Haywire'' (1990 - 1991). For a while, she also designed costumes for Shipstead & Johnson's Ice Follies. Renié was an adherent of the

Church of Christ, Scientist The Church of Christ, Scientist was founded in 1879 in Boston, Massachusetts, by Mary Baker Eddy, author of '' Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,'' and founder of Christian Science. The church was founded "to commemorate the word and ...

, who contended that her faith enabled her to overcome worldly ambition, putting her work on an unselfish and solid foundation.''A Century of Christian Science Healing'' (Boston: Christian Science Publishing Society, 1966), pp. 191-193 She died at the age of 91 years in

Los Angeles County, California Los Angeles County, officially the County of Los Angeles and sometimes abbreviated as LA County, is the List of United States counties and county equivalents, most populous county in the United States, with 9,663,345 residents estimated in 202 ...

References

External links

*
Renie costume design drawings
Margaret Herrick Library, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences American costume designers Best Costume Design Academy Award winners 1901 births 1992 deaths {{US-film-bio-stub