1. John Mollo was a British costume designer and writer on the history of the military uniform.
19 Facts About John Mollo
1. 2.
John Mollo created the costumes for the first two installments of the Star Wars original film trilogy.
3.
John Mollo's father was Eugene Simonovitch Mollo, a Russian immigrant who had escaped Russia in the 1920s, and his mother was Ella Clara Mollo.
4.
Eugene John Mollo had started his own company that specialised in spraying cement.
5.
John Mollo followed his father's interest in military history and developed a particular interest in military uniforms from a very young age.
6.
John Mollo recalled being especially inspired when he saw the 1935 film Clive of India as a child and returned home from the cinema to draw the costume of King George II.
7.
John Mollo was educated at Charterhouse School and then went on to study at the Farnham School of Art in Surrey.
8.
The son of this second marriage, Tom John Mollo, served as a captain in the Coldstream Guards and as equerry to Queen Elizabeth II.
9.
John Mollo wrote several carefully researched books on European and American military uniform, including Uniforms of the American Revolution and Into the Valley of Death: The British Cavalry Division at Balaclava 1854, often in collaboration with his brother Boris and with illustrator Malcolm McGregor.
10.
John Mollo was engaged as advisor for the movies Charge of the Light Brigade, Nicholas and Alexandra and on Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon, ensuring the historical accuracy of the military uniforms worn by actors.
11.
John Mollo was commissioned in 1975 by a young filmmaker named George Lucas to devise uniforms and outfits for a fantasy space war film, Star Wars.
12.
McQuarrie's image of Darth Vader had developed from Samurai armour, and John Mollo built up a costume using a combination of clerical robes, a motorcycle suit, a German military helmet and a gas mask from Bermans and Nathans costumiers in Camden Town.
13.
John Mollo intentionally designed the uniforms of Imperial officers to resemble German Nazi officers' uniforms; by contrast, the heroes of the film were dressed in costumes resembling Wild West outfits.
14.
John Mollo worked with George Lucas to compile a chart of visual designs for a range of character types.
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John Mollo collaborated with make-up artist Stuart Freeborn, who designed the masks and prosthetics to match each of the costumes, along with Doug Beswick, Rick Baker and Phil Tippett.
16.
John Mollo was surprised by the success of Star Wars, and in 1978 he won an Academy Award for Costume Design.
17.
John Mollo went on to work as advisor on more conventional military films such as Zulu Dawn.
18.
John Mollo designed costumes for the crew of the Nostromo spacecraft in Ridley Scott's Alien, and he returned to the Star Wars universe to work with Irvin Kershner on the 1980 sequel, The Empire Strikes Back.
19.
John Mollo's books documented the history of military uniform in particular theatres of war such as the American Revolution, the Seven Years' War and the Crimean War.