Saturday, December 17, 2011

 

Spotlight On Nolan Miller
A Legacy Beyond Shoulder Pads

 

By Gina Silverstein

 

 

If Coco Chanel promoted the revolutionary freedom of the little black dress, it was Costume Designer Nolan Miller who gave women a sense of empowerment. His heavily shoulder-padded suits for the hit show "Dynasty" in the 1980s spawned a new kind of woman in popular culture – one who looked as if she could command a board room. Miller's success was in part due to the collaboration he enjoyed with actress Joan Collins during the show's eight-year run. Collins not only fearlessly played the ruthless character of Alexis, she was equally gutsy in her approach to costumes. Together, Collins and Miller wove a lasting impression on audiences and caused a sea change in how women dressed. Miller's shoulder pads went beyond helping to define the silhouette as they had during World War II. His masculine shapes progressively became a symbol of women's attempt to break the glass ceiling to get ahead.

The cultural effect at the time was virtually unparalleled. Miller says he especially knew he had hit upon something when he saw thirteen-year-old girls dressing up like Alexis and Paris couture houses mimicking his designs. Creating international fashion trends can be risky, though, and this was no exception. While the shoulder pads were huge in every sense of the word and undoubtedly helped to bring about financial opportunities with the launch of "The Dynasty Collection" for the masses, Miller's costume designing could easily have been eclipsed by it. Fortunately, his exceptional talent and passion for costume design created a legacy that has outlasted any fashion trend. Since he designed for "Dynasty" at the zenith of a career that began in the mid-1950s, his early work begs to be explored to understand what led to the "Dynasty" phenomenon.

Since most people in their twenties are still discovering what to do with their lives, it's striking that Miller knew at the age of six he wanted to become a Costume Designer, and more so because he was born into a rural Texas family in 1935 during the Great Depression. His family and friends thought costume designing was a pipe dream and often teased him. Undaunted, after high school Miller studied design at the Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles to learn the skills he needed to pursue his dream. One of the guest lecturers, Costume Designer Howard Shoup, would later offer encouragement when Miller left the school in 1953 and had difficulty finding work in Hollywood. The advent of television was killing movies and since the screens at that time were small with fuzzy black and white images, there was little need for costume designers. To pay the bills, the young designer found work at a Beverly Hills flower shop.

While arranging flowers part-time, Miller continued to look for design work, calling upon Costume Designer Walter Plunkett at MGM whom he describes as "an incredible talent" he very much admired. The veteran designer looked at his sketches and sent him to Al Nichol at Western Costume who in turn called Ret Turner at NBC. Turner hired Miller for the wardrobe department part-time, first to work on the live hour-long "Matinee Theatre" and later for variety shows, including the "Dinah Shore Show." He was appreciative of the opportunity and considers the large casts with fast-paced and varied costume changes as a "great training ground."

Back at the flower shop, Miller met Aaron Spelling who was still a struggling writer in the mid-1950s. The shop owner's daughter was Spelling's typist and he often came in to buy flowers for his first wife, actress Carolyn Jones. Miller became close friends with the couple and designed clothes for Jones' personal appearances. A lifelong professional relationship began when Spelling began producing for Four Star Productions and collaborated with Miller on an episode of "Zane Grey" theatre with Joan Crawford in 1961. In 1965, they worked together again on "Burke's Law" and its spin-off, "Honey West," starring Anne Francis in the title role as a sexy, high-tech detective with a pet ocelot. Miller's alluring outfits for her undercover missions and black body stockings for prowling around at night were perhaps a first glimpse at his genius for designing costumes for independent women. Unfortunately, the series only lasted 30 episodes.

By 1969, Spelling had left Four Star and formed the first of several production companies. He often used Four Star's formula of hiring major actresses who were past their prime for films and had started doing television. Miller says Spelling would turn to him for costume design when "he wanted to make them think it was the good old days of Hollywood." Two of these television movies were "Wake Me When The War Is Over," (1969) starring Eva Gabor, and "The House That Would Not Die," (1970), with Barbara Stanwyck. Meanwhile, Miller also worked as a wardrobe consultant for Eva Gabor on "Green Acres."

The project that cemented Miller's future with Spelling, however, was the hit series "Charlie's Angels." The 1976 pilot and five subsequent seasons gave Miller another opportunity to design for a female private investigator but this time there were three of them, initially played by Kate Jackson, Farrah Fawcett and Jaclyn Smith. The trio wore disguises while working undercover on the beach, skating rink, racetrack and other "covert" locations. Miller infused the characters with influences of the French Riviera, which had not been seen by most Americans. His costumes often pushed provocativeness as far as the censors would allow, especially with Fawcett. Each actress had clearly defined roles reflected in their costumes – Fawcett was the sexy one wearing fashion-forward or revealing outfits such as crepe de chine blouses, braless. Jackson was the smart, tom-boy angel usually dressed in no-nonsense attire and turtle-neck sweaters. And Smith was the sweet, beautiful sophisticate who often wore tasteful, classic gabardine suits. Miller says he occasionally got caught up in the beauty of the girls, and especially had a soft spot for Smith. One day Spelling called him from the projection room and asked why he had put her in a fur coat. Miller told him it wasn't an expensive fur coat to which Spelling retorted, "Well, she doesn't look like a police woman in a fur coat."

The show – and its costumes – offered escapism at its best during a time marked by an oil crisis and post-Watergate political apathy. But, the feminist movement was also in full force and feminists blasted Spelling and Miller for pushing sexism thinly veiled as progressivism. They especially targeted the braless Fawcett and the women's "undercover" romps dressed in bikinis as gratuitous. The show survived the criticism in large part because it didn't take itself too seriously and became a huge rating success.

About this time, Spelling offered Miller a contract and took full advantage of the designer's talent. Although he was free to consult on other projects, Miller usually had little time for them. "I was happy but of course under contract they just piled everything on me," he remembers. In addition to designing two or three series simultaneously, Miller estimates he did thirty television movies and mini-series while under contract. He employed teams of costume supervisors and costumers who helped him organize, shop, cut, sew and fit but with the amount of workload, Miller had to use expert managerial skills just to keep it all together. There were years when he rushed between several studios every day. "It was strange," he says. "I was doing all those shows and I didn't even think about it. I just was doing it."

The series that Miller designed concurrently with "Charlie's Angels" were Spelling's "Hart to Hart" (1979–1984), "The Love Boat" (1977–1986) and "Dynasty" (1981–1989). All three offered audiences exotic and glamorous worlds to dream about. In "Hart to Hart" a millionaire couple moonlighted as amateur detectives and cracked cases with the help of their butler/chauffeur. Although it bore some similarities to "Charlie's Angels" with its investigator theme, the Harts, played by Robert Wagner and Stefanie Powers, were older, rarely in disguise and lived in an upscale Los Angeles neighborhood. For the bon vivant character of Jonathan Hart, Miller kept Wagner in sophisticated casual wear and tailored suits, and when the script called for it, tuxedos. "No one was easier to please than Bob Wagner," Miller says about the relationship. Powers, as Jennifer Hart, was often dressed in chic pantsuits and silk blouses, and for evenings of espionage, understated yet elegant gowns and cocktail dresses. When Miller needed to move on to other projects, Costume Designer Grady Hunt took over for the last three seasons.

Page 1 | Page 2 »