Cecil Beaton won awards for dressing both Hepburns.
He received the Tony for his costumes for Katharine Hepburn in Alan Jay Lerner’s 1969 Broadway production of Coco, a musical based on the life of Coco Chanel. He won the Oscar for dressing Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady (1964).
Though undeniably talented, Beaton defined English snobbery. And he did so almost from birth. He was born Cecil Walter Hardy Beaton on January 14, 1904, to Ernest and Etty Sissons Beatty in the über-affluent Hampstead neighborhood of London, England. Though his family was upper middle class, Beaton longed for a more glamorous existence for himself and his siblings, Nancy, Barbara, and Reginald. As a young boy, he sent photographs of his sisters to the editors of London society columns. He was thrilled when they were published, not only because it pleased him as the photographer, but because it helped establish his family more firmly among society. His interest in theater purportedly started when he was four. Beaton’s father took him to see theater legend Lily Elsie in a stage production of The Merry Widow (1908). The impression of Elsie performing in her Lucile gown obsessed him for life. At ten, Beaton constructed a miniature theater from his aunt’s hat box. He cut out pictures of performers from Play Pictorial magazine to act on his makeshift stage, and voiced all the parts himself.
Beaton studied at Harrow and then spent three years at St. Johns College, Cambridge. There, he acted in The Rose and the Ring and designed for Volpone. He left Cambridge without a degree, and when he exhibited no talent for office work, turned to photography to earn his living. He eventually secured a contract with Conde Nast publications, and worked exclusively for them, photographing film stars and members of society on both sides of the Atlantic. He became the official photographer to the Court of St. James and took photographs of Queen Elizabeth and her family, as well as the wedding portraits of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.
At thirty, Beaton debuted as a professional theatrical designer. Producer C. B. Cochrane hired him for the 1934 revue Streamline. He designed other revues for Cochrane, ballets for Osbert Sitwell, William Walton, and Frederick Ashton, and designed for West End theater productions. In 1938, he landed in hot water when he added an anti-Semitic phrase to an illustration he created for Vogue. Beaton claimed that he intended the remark as a prank, to go no further than the art department. Though he blamed a cold for his temporary lapse in judgment, Conde Nast was not persuaded and fired him.
In 1941, Beaton began designing costumes for British films. But his big break in film came when Alexander Korda hired him to design costumes for An Ideal Husband (1947), starring Paulette Goddard. Anna Karenina (1948) with Vivien Leigh followed.
Beaton did not design another major film until Gigi (1958) with Leslie Caron. Beaton sketched designs for two months at his country estate, Reddish House. He drew on early magazines Les Modes, Femina, Le Theatre, and Cahiers d’ Art for inspiration. The principal costumes were made in Paris by Madame Karinska, and Beaton oversaw the making of the rest of the costumes at MGM. Hermione Gingold took exception with a black wool dress that Beaton had pulled for her to wear from the stock at MGM. She felt it looked shabby, “almost like a school mistress uniform,” she said. But Beaton believed it perfectly suited her character, a conservative woman of economy. Director Vincente Minnelli backed his decision. “Leslie Caron is an example of a sensitive girl who, as a dancer, paid not too much attention to clothes,” Beaton said of the film’s star. “Now she has developed chic taste. As she has matured, her face has assumed a beauty it lacked years ago.” Beaton won an Academy Award for his Gigi wardrobe.
Beaton designed the costumes for the 1956 Broadway and 1958 London stage productions of Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe’s My Fair Lady. In 1962, when Beaton was signed by Jack Warner to do the costumes for the film, his designs were well reviewed. Fashion editors waxed on about Beaton’s romantic vision of the past. “It’s in the clothes that the romantic message is most significantly transmitted,” wrote one. “Most of the 1,086 costumes Cecil Beaton designed for the picture—the exceptions are Eliza Doolittle’s flower girl rags—are marvelously extravagant and opulent in line, color, and fabric. They recall the heliotrope-scented world of whale-boned corsets, bustles, bows, long white kid gloves, aigrettes, and flirty sunshades. Femininity is rampant.” For My Fair Lady, Beaton won two Oscars, one for costume design and one for art direction.
Cecil Beaton and Audrey Hepburn on the set of My Fair Lady (1964).
Design for Leslie Caron in Gigi (1958).
A Cecil Beaton set design for Gigi.
Design for Leslie Caron and Louis Jourdan in Gigi.
Director Vincente Minnelli brought Beaton back to Hollywood to design for Barbra Streisand in On a Clear Day You Can See Forever (1970), with Arnold Scaasi, the film version of Alan J. Lerner’s Broadway musical. Beaton was appalled when entire scenes featuring his elaborate and expensive costumes wound up on the cutting-room floor.
During his life, Beaton had relationships with both men and women, including the fencer Kinmont Hoitsma and Adele Astaire, sister of Fred Astaire. He was knighted in 1972 by Queen Elizabeth II. Two years later, he suffered a stroke that paralyzed his right side. Beaton turned to writing and editing his diaries for publication, and arranged sales of his photographs at Sotheby’s. He died of a heart attack on January 18, 1980, in England.
Barbra Streisand in On a Clear Day You Can See Forever (1970).