Travilla Style: Film: Travilla & Valley of the Dolls Part 3

Helen Lawson

"Helen Lawson is an old, 'slipping' Broadway warhorse, holding her position in the theater by the skin of her teeth. She's a crude, rough, selfish, hard-bitten woman who fights using every dirty trick she knows, and she knows all of them. A foul-mouthed, ruthless woman, completely without taste or finesse. And whatever she wears is the most expensive and the most vulgar. She comes on like gang-busters--like a scream. I dress her just that way." The problem Travilla found with characters like this. "If I try and be honest and to design a tasteless wardrobe with everything I think the character should have, I am always afraid someone will think that it's my own taste."

Helen Lawson had only four scenes, but they were meaty, including a catfight with Neely and a solo number. Twentieth's signature for the film rights purchase was barely dry when columnist Rona Barrett told her readers, "Bette Davis said she would give her right arm" if the studio would give her the role."

Eight months later, journalists reported that Lucille Ball was first in line for the part but lost out when she wanted the part enlarged. In early February, Earl Wilson alerted his readers that Rita Hayworth was in town to test for Lawson. However, by February 20, he reported that Judy Garland was interested and bragged about signing a contract six days later.

The bottom two sketches are exact in style (notice the collar and belt loops) but for his private label.

Possible costume variations for Garland.

Many felt Garland's playing the part was ironic, considering the book's character, Neeley O'Hara, was a thinly disguised version of Garland's early career and addiction to pills. Judy appeared with Sussan at a March 3 press conference at New York's Saint Regis Hotel. Sitting next to the author before a roomful of reporters, she quickly answered the barrage of questions tossed at her. Why did she accept the role? "Because they asked me." When had they offered her the part? "About two weeks ago." When did she take it? "The same day!" Garland's wit never wavered, even when asked about playing an older woman. "I didn't necessarily think that Helen Lawson is supposed to be older than me." While a waiter replaced her glass of water with one of orange juice, Judy wryly cracked, "I don't think anyone is older than me." She continued her thought. "Everybody gets upset if I'm happy. People don't know how to pencil me in any other way than miserable. Well, I'm glad about this part." She paused a moment before continuing."The part is no more me than Judgment at Nuremberg...It doesn't pertain to me."

Judy and Travilla had a previous working relationship, as his name appears in several of her 1964-65 address books. Garland struck Travilla as "a tragic figure, so nervous and frail. She was literally wasting away. It was as if there was no life left in her skin; her body had dissipated." He designed outfits that would conceal those imperfections and give her an aura of strength and formidability. These included a metallic green caftan trimmed in gold, a tailored skirt, a bright red jacket, and a Dolman-sleeved, white, bugle-beaded gown for her musical solo. However, the most iconic outfit connected to Judy and the film was a velvet pantsuit heavily embellished with orange-yellow and rust-toned jewels, sequins, and beads in a paisley pattern. Of the final total of $17,000, five thousand was for the pantsuit alone.

Judy completed her hair, make-up, and costume tests for the picture on April 14, 1967. Color footage shows Garland having a pleasant time, joking and laughing with the crew. Photos were also taken of her with Travilla as they conversed in a corner of the soundstage.

LOOK magazine, planning a cover story on the film, sent a photographer who shot Garland's interaction with the cast on set and in her dressing room with children Joey and Lorna. He also shot several rolls of Duke, Tate, and Parkins in costume and on stage. However, Judy would be fired within a week, and the unpublished photographs were added to LOOK's photo archive on April 27. A few of Tate, Parkins, and Duke did show up in the September issue for the article "The Movie Dames that Play the Dolls."

There were frequent delays during Judy's first few days of scheduled filming. Patty Duke claimed the director kept her waiting until 4:30 in the afternoon, though she'd been on-set and ready since morning. Sitting in her dressing room only intensified her fears of performing, and she medicated with pills and alcohol. Garland only completed one day of filming, the scene in which her character is introduced.

The footage has never been shown and was labeled unusable at the time. It is very similar to Marilyn Monroe's unseen footage from 1962's Something's Got to Give. Later, Fox assembled and released the footage on DVD, proving it untrue. Much could also be said of her test recording of "I'll Plant my Own Tree." She was nowhere near a finished product and certainly would have been rerecorded had she completed the project.

There are many versions of how Garland was finally let go from production, including published reports "that she held up filming when she lost a cap from a tooth, received a phone call during filming that a close friend had tried to commit suicide and was too distraught to continue and well-meaning people wouldn't stop asking her if she didn't feel an identification with the character in the film, an aging, one-time great star on the skids."

Travilla was one of the first people she called when the rumors of her dismissal were circulating. "I went along with her . . . that I couldn't believe they had fired her... (and said) the way to hear about it was from the producer. Then I called up the producer straight away and told him to expect Judy to phone him. I let him know she was terribly upset and had been crying on the phone to me." Patty Duke remembers Mark Robson the director didn't even tell her himself, he had someone else do it. Garland crumbled.

Mid-May newspaper reports state that "The entire 'Valley' company is in the dumps about Judy, from the executive office down to the props and grips. Everything had been set up to keep her relaxed and happy, even to putting a pool table in her swank dressing room. It's been moved out along with all Judy's personal belongings: pictures of her kids in silver frames, a portable piano, her record player and all the gowns designed for her by Bill Travilla."

Barbara Parkins repeats on the VOD DVD commentary that Garland stole the sequined pantsuit and her other costumes and wore them onstage during her concerts to spite them for firing her. This was untrue, although Garland was gifted the $5000 pantsuit she'd wear in many of her concerts.

The retail version had much less embellishment than the film version.

Thanks to Hayward, she was also paid her salary in full, and she purchased two more suits, one in all white and one in all red, to wear at various venues and television appearances, including the Johnny Carson Show, until her death in 1969.

Supposedly Garland's version of the "Plant My Own Tree" gown. I'm skeptical.

Instead of bright orange like Garland's costume, Hayward's gown was made in greens and gold to offset her red hair.

Whatever Garland's actual reason for leaving, a replacement had to be found. Bette Davis was briefly considered and would've been an interesting choice. But the role went to Susan Hayward, who hadn't made a film in four years.

Travilla did something unusual: he flew from Los Angeles to Hayward's home in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, to show her his costume ideas. Hayward's husband had recently died and the studio wanted to make things easy on the new widow. However, things didn't go smoothly when Travilla told his pattern cutter Oleta Robinson, of the trip. "I know that Travilla was looking forward to working with Susan Hayward as he had worked with her before [1951's David and Bathsheba and 1954's A Garden of Evil.] and had a good relationship, but this time did not go well, unknown to everyone, she had a brain tumor and was difficult to please. Her favorite quote to describe each dress was, 'It's a dog. I wouldn't be caught dead in it.'" Robertson attributes the actress' behavior to a yet undiagnosed brain tumor from which she would die in 1975.

But once Hayward got to Los Angeles, she became the ultimate trouper, telling the press, "It's great to be back at my home studio -- as long as I know I can go back home again. It's fun doing a small part, two weeks in Hollywood, and then back to my lovely house in Fort Lauderdale. The strangest thing's happened: I've learned I love to fish." She added. "Helen's much unlike me. For one thing, she'd never go fishing. She's not exactly a person you'd take home to mother. She's a woman with a backbone of steel."

As for her own singing in the film? "I love to but time won't permit it. First I'd have to give up these coffin nails for my voice and second, get back with my singing coach. Instead, my favorite, Maggie Whiting will be doing the singing for me."

he designer recreated all four costumes for Hayward at a total cost of $20,400. The high cost was due to overtime for the wardrobe department. However, much of it was wasted effort. "She made me take everything out - the lining, the pads, everything. That way, she thought she'd look thinner. I argued that the gowns would fall out of shape. Ultimately, I had no choice but to take it all out; only the beads stayed."

When it came specifically to the sequined pantsuit, it was a resounding no from the Academy Award-winning actress. "Hayward didn't believe in ladies wearing trousers and never wore them herself," he told Jeanne Miller in December 1967. "She took one look at it and said: 'I wouldn't wear it to a dog fight.' I was utterly crushed, but I was unable to get her to change her mind. She kept repeating, time and again, that the costume was a dog."

Hayward didn't believe in ladies wearing trousers and never wore them herself. The designer had let the issue drop but recalled, "Then, one day, she reported for preliminary tests on make-up and hair. I talked into wearing the suit, just for the rushes. She asked them to rerun it when she saw it in the rushes. That was all she needed to be convinced she was wrong. As a matter of fact, she looks glorious in the outfit." She eventually grew to love the outfit so much that she joined Parkins, Duke, and Tate to personally model it at a fashion show promoting the film and Travilla's VOD-based line held at New York City's Plaza Hotel in the Summer of 1967.

"Susan is tough. I don't say that critically, however. She is every inch the real, big-time movie star in the old tradition, and she never lets anyone forget it for a moment. She and her party arrived in seven limousines on the night of the Eastern premiere of Valley in Miami. She was dressed to the teeth with every hair in place, just radiating glamour. Some of the younger actresses could well take a leaf from her book. I think a star's public deserves to see her look like that when she appears in public."

Neely O'Hara

"Neely O'Hara - the ingenue. In the opening she's another of the thousands of hopefuls who dream of stardom, trying to break into Broadway. I made sure her togs were smart, but the bargain-basement type. She's rehearsing in a show and wearing hip-hugger and bell-bottom slacks that lace up the front. She wears a sweatshirt. She's a working showgirl, perfectly natural, full of zip, clawing her way to the top. At this point, she couldn't care less what she's wearing. Of course, this line of wardrobe changes very radically when she becomes a big success. She goes in all the way for high fashion. I gave her the latest in mini-styles and even micro-skirts for formal wear. And in the screenplay, Neely marries her dress designer, so I had empathy for the clothes supposedly created by him."

In mid-January, columnist Dorothy Manners teased her readers with, "Elizabeth Hartman gets Neilie (sic) O'Hara. Director Mark Robson became addicted to her when he saw her in You're a Big Boy Now. Hartman was an Academy Award nominee for Best Actress at 22 for her performance opposite Sidney Poitier in A Patch of Blue. However, Robson went with another Academy nominee who had won her category.

Patty Duke originated the role of Helen Keller in The Miracle Worker. She played the role on Broadway for eighteen months and then again in the film version, and she was nominated for and won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar. She then appeared in the hit television series The Patty Duke Show as twins Patty and Cathy Lane for 105 episodes. Now an adult, she wanted to show Hollywood; it took more than "a hot dog to drive her wild."

The actress wanted the role of Neely very badly. Duke told one reporter, "When I started this picture and knew Travilla was designing a wardrobe just for me, I got ambitious and reduced to eighty pounds."

And Travilla didn't disappoint Patty, dressing her in a gold lattice-work costume made from fabric costing $150 a yard (in 1967 dollars!). The costume is at the Hollywood History Museum in the old Max Factor Building in Los Angeles. It may or may not be on display.

Of all the films that Travilla had designed for, this was the only one that offered him a role. He could've played Ted Casablanca, the costume designer husband of Patty Duke's movie character. However, it contained (the above) scene where she returned home from the studio to find him skinny dipping in their pool with a starlet. The script called for both swimmers, still nude, to run off, into the bushes. He was assured the camera would show him only from the rear. However, Travilla still wasn't convinced about the propriety of a nude scene. Telling Interview Magazine in 1988, "The director, Mark Robson, tried to convince me that it would be great for my business. I have customers out there who pay hundreds of dollars for my clothing designs. They wouldn't appreciate seeing my bare ass running across the screen." Asked whom the character was based upon, even if Travilla knew, he replied, "I have no idea. I know I was never caught naked in a pool with a starlet – my wife would've killed me."

His worrying was for naught because, in the final version, only the girl was seen fleeing the pool. Had he accepted the role, he would've performed opposite Marilyn Monroe. Fox used her laugh, taken from her nude swimming scene in the uncompleted film Something's Got to Give, as a sound effect during the scene.