From Wikipedia
Irene Lentz (December 8, 1900 – November 15, 1962), also
known as Irene, was an American costume designer. Her work as a clothing
designer in Los Angeles led to her career as a costume designer for films in
the 1930s. Lentz also worked under the name Irene Gibbons.
Lentz's designs at Bullocks gained her much attention in the
film community and she was contracted by independent production companies to
design the wardrobe for some of their productions. Billing herself simply as
"Irene," her first work came in 1933 on the film Goldie Gets Along
featuring her designs for star Lily Damita. However, her big break came when
she was hired to create the gowns for Ginger Rogers for her 1937 film Shall We
Dance with Fred Astaire. This was followed by more designs in another Ginger
Rogers film as well as work for other independents such as Walter Wanger
Productions, Hal Roach Studios as well as majors such as RKO, Paramount
Pictures and Columbia Pictures. During the 1930s, Irene Lentz designed the film
wardrobe for leading ladies such as Constance Bennett, Hedy Lamarr, Joan
Bennett, Claudette Colbert, Carole Lombard, Ingrid Bergman, and Loretta Young
among others.
Through her work, she met and married short story author and
screenwriter Eliot Gibbons, brother of multi-Academy Award winning Cedric Gibbons,
head of art direction at MGM Studios. Despite her success, working under the
powerful set designer Cedric Gibbons while being married to his brother was not
easy. Irene confided to her close friend Doris Day that the marriage to Gibbons
was not a happy one. Generally regarded as the most important and influential
production designer in the history of American films, Cedric Gibbons hired
Lentz when gown designer Adrian left MGM to join Universal Studios. By 1943 she
was a leading costume supervisor at MGM, earning international recognition for
her "soufflé creations" and is remembered for her avant-garde
wardrobe for Lana Turner in 1946's The Postman Always Rings Twice. In 1948, she
was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Costume Design, Black-and-White
for B.F.'s Daughter.
In 1950, she left MGM to open her own fashion house. After
being out of the film industry for nearly ten years, in 1960, Doris Day
requested her talents for the Universal Studios production Midnight Lace for which
Lentz earned a second Academy Award nomination. The following year she did the
costume design for another Doris Day film and during 1962 worked on her last
production, A Gathering of Eagles.
On November 15, 1962, three weeks short of her sixty-second
birthday, Lentz took room 1129 at the Knickerbocker Hotel, checking in under an
assumed name. She jumped to her death from her bathroom window at about 3 p.m.
In 2005, Irene Lentz was inducted into the Costume Designers
Guild's Anne Cole Hall of Fame.
