1. Orry-Kelly was the professional name of Orry George Kelly, an Australian-American Hollywood costume designer.
18 Facts About Orry-Kelly
1. 2.
Orry-Kelly was born in Kiama, New South Wales, Australia, and was known as Jack Kelly.
3.
Orry-Kelly's father William Kelly was born on the Isle of Man and was a gentleman tailor in Kiama.
4.
Orry-Kelly was sent to Sydney at age 17 to study banking, and there he developed his interest in theatre.
5.
Orry-Kelly journeyed to New York City to pursue an acting career and shared an apartment in Greenwich Village with Charles Phelps and Cary Grant, with whom, he wrote, he had an on-again, off-again relationship until the 1930s.
6.
Orry-Kelly designed costumes and sets for Broadway's Shubert Revues and George White's Scandals.
7.
Orry-Kelly served with the United States Army Air Corps during World War II until being discharged for alcohol problems.
8.
Orry-Kelly was encouraged to hyphenate his name for film credits in order to appear more exotic.
9.
Orry-Kelly won three Academy Awards for Best Costume Design and was nominated for a fourth.
10.
Orry-Kelly designed for all the great actresses of the day, including Bette Davis, Kay Francis, Ruth Chatterton, Marilyn Monroe, Olivia de Havilland, Katharine Hepburn, Dolores del Rio, Ava Gardner, Ann Sheridan, Barbara Stanwyck, and Merle Oberon.
11.
Orry-Kelly was known for his ability to "design for distraction" to compensate for difficult figure shapes.
12.
Orry-Kelly would be dressed in opposition to the role, with the traditional femme fatale or manipulative character in frills and the honest heroine in a tailored, classic suit.
13.
Orry-Kelly applied this aesthetic in the creation of gowns for a number of Bette Davis's characters.
14.
Orry-Kelly created clothes for the cross-dressing characters played by Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon in Some Like It Hot.
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Orry-Kelly's skill is shown by the fact that while Some Like It Hot was in production, Curtis and Lemmon would go into the ladies' room after eating lunch without being spotted as men.
16.
Orry-Kelly's pallbearers included Cary Grant, Tony Curtis, Billy Wilder and George Cukor and his eulogy was read by Jack L Warner.
17.
Orry-Kelly had no living relatives when he died; his personal effects and Academy Awards were stored by Ann Warner, wife of his friend and former boss, Jack.
18.
The Oscars were among the items in an exhibition entitled Orry-Kelly: Dressing Hollywood, at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image in August 2015.