Designer Double-Dip: Belfry and the Bats

If you come here much, you know that every so often we like to point out the recycling of movie and/or TV costumes. It can be really fascinating to discover that something you've seen in a famous or favorite movie has turned up on the back of someone else later. There are precious few movies more famous or more of an overall favorite than the one we're looking at today, the 1965 international blockbuster The Sound of Music!

In the course of the film (spoiler alert!), novitiate Julie Andrews opts to avoid life as a nun in order to become the wife of ex-naval captain Christopher Plummer and mother to his seven children.

The sisters of the abbey provide a staggering locale for the nuptials. And the movie's costume designer Dorothy Jeakins provided Andrews with an iconic gown.

A simple, but expertly tailored dress of ivory silk was extremely clean in its lines, offset by a billowing, diaphanous veil which succeeded in giving Andrews an eye-poppingly angelic, appropriately chaste, appearance against the dim, archaic surroundings.

There are few bells and whistles with this gown (think of the monstrosities we've all lived through since then!), but its elegant simplicity won over the hearts of many a viewer.

The wedding sequence isn't terribly long and there aren't really all that many opportunities to see the dress up close. But here you can see the body of it pretty clearly. It sported a stand up collar with one side folded over the other in front and many little fabric-covered buttons on the arms.

Barely visible here are a long line of said buttons up the back of the gown as well. The wedding in The Sound of Music is a marvel of pale simplicity amidst a wealth of glorious gilt, stone, statuary and varnished wood. Such a ceremony would be the dream of virtually any girl.

Here in this on-set photo we get a really good look at the garment. But what ever became of it after shooting wrapped in 1964? Reportedly, the dress was simply turned over to Western Costume, ostensibly for use in future projects.

In 1966, the year after Music took the world by storm and had become an immortal favorite of so many moviegoers, the TV series Batman came to the airwaves. It, in its own way, was a smash hit as well. It's broadly campy tone and colorful, comic book look scored with youngsters and their parents alike. Here in episodes 21 & 22 (the stories were always told in multiple parts with a cliffhanger in-between), we find Burgess Meredith as The Penguin. He's pretending to go "straight" and wins the heart of a wealthy heiress played by Kathleen Crowley.

In truth, he's really after Crowley's dough. And one big part of it is this "dowry" of expensive wedding gifts that his henchmen are seen inventorying. (The one facing us is Harvey Lembeck, who did so many of the Beach Party films.) I'll explain the array of buckets in a moment...

Remember... this is a wacky, comic-book inspired show, so the plotlines are not going to be out of Faulkner or Hemingway. Meredith has invited a host of luminaries to attend his wedding ceremony in a hotel suite, but has a trick up his sleeve. He causes several water pipes to burst within the room! This will create the need for the guests to use umbrellas, which he has on hand, naturally.

When his bride arrives on the scene, she is startled to discover the dripping water pouring from various parts of the ceiling. And we are doubly startled to discover that she's wearing Andrews' dress from The Sound of Music!

Now is a good time to mention that Julie Andrews was 5'8" tall. Miss Crowley was a mere 5'2". So the dress, which had been carefully fitted to Andrews' frame, was altogether too big for Crowley. Not to mention, Andrews had very long arms, as well.

This meant that the gown needed considerable alterations done on it.

Whereas before, the front of the collar was folded across one side, it's now been crudely sewn together up the middle...!

The whole wedding becomes a total fiasco as water is falling, then all sorts of streamers and confetti come falling down and then Meredith gasses Commissioner Gordon and Chief O'Hara. During the melee, Meredith makes off with his loot, leaving the bride behind. I will return to what effect this had on the gown in just a bit. 

First, though, we're going to shift our attention to another 1960s show, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, starring Hope Lange. Based on a 1947 movie by the same name, it involved a widow who lives with her children and a housekeeper in a New England house, which is haunted by the ghost of a sea captain. In this pic, Lange is welcoming a pair of stranded motorists (no, not Brad & Janet.)

The couple, Jonathan Daly and Yvonne Craig, are about to be married, but their car has broken down nearby and they need a place to be sheltered from the rain.

Lange is kind enough to put them up (in separate rooms), but ultimately the ghost has other plans for them. If you haven't already made the connection, Miss Craig had her own association with the aforementioned series Batman...

In order to perk up that show's third season, she was brought on board as Batgirl!

Now toothy Daly, best known for sitcoms like Petticoat Junction, The Jimmy Stewart Show and CPO Sharkey, is not my type at all, but... as I am a completist about such things, I have to report that he is shirtless for about a fourth of his time in the ep.

Anyway, as I was saying, the ghost has his own ideas about what should be going on with Daly and Craig during their stay at "his" house. So Lange (seen here with her housekeeper, the always captivating Reta Shaw) arranges a late night wedding for the couple. 

To perform the ceremony, they drag this poor guy out of his bed. Do you recognize a toupee-free Charles Nelson Reilly, in a surprisingly understated performance??

Also on hand is one of the cutest damned dogs I have ever seen...! Scruffy as Scruffy. LOL What a sweet little pooch.

As the ceremony unfolds, Lange can't help but notice the longing gaze she receives from the ghost (Edward Mulhare.) Their unusual romance was the crux of much of the gently comic series. This was 1968 and Lange was but 35 years-old, yet is very often shot through a heavy filter (which, in my cattier moments I sometimes refer to as "being shot through an Indian blanket!")

But you know why we're here, right? For the wedding ceremony! Here comes Craig into the parlor for her nuptials.

And soon enough we find that yet another gal has donned Julie Andrews' dress!

Yvonne Craig was 5'3", just one inch taller than Crowley, so the dress basically fit her, too. (The altered sleeves look a little bit short on Craig, though.)

This time out, perhaps as a result of a bust measurement difference (?), the collar has been reworked in order be more like the folded-over look it originally bore. (Though on Craig, the flaps are reversed.)

I cannot be certain, of course, but I think this third outing was the final time this gown saw use in a TV show or movie. We do know what finally became of the gown, but one mystery remains...

This is a photo of the once-luminous gown as it appeared in 2013. As you can see, it had been distressed and damaged along the front and bottom. I know how, where and when that happened.

During all the watery, confetti-strewn squalor of that Batman episode, the delicate ivory silk was trashed by residual water spray! Complete disregard for the well-being of the garment. What I  don't know is how, two years later, the dress was seen on Muir looking bright, undamaged and stain-free. Perhaps that one was a duplicate or it was somehow cleaned, but then later the damage slowly reappeared over time? 

The dress eventually landed in the hands of former child star turned commercial zenith "Josephine the Plumber," Miss Jane Withers, who was a devoted preservationist of Hollywood memorabilia (along with noted fellow archivist Debbie Reynolds.) The gown sold at auction for $23,000 in 2013 and is hopefully being loved by whoever it was that bought it. 

I doubt that even Dame Julie Andrews is aware of the path that her famed costume took once she removed it for the last time. Noted as having adored it, I doubt she would be pleased to know that it was carelessly damaged in the making of a "zany" television episode! I know it did me no great favor to see it splashed with water and coated down in debris. But this was info I didn't feel I could keep to myself once I discovered it! Till next time...

"Okay, so who do we hate??"

I recall Joan Rivers saying something like that from time to time on her outrageous awards show fashion re-caps on E! This post is unrelated to that, but has a similar trajectory to it. I'm a big fan of Richard Lamparski's series of books, "Whatever Became Of...?" in which he visited nearly (or almost completely!) forgotten celebrities and caught up with them. He'd ask about their careers, what they've been up to since the spotlight faded and then provide a current (often shocking, to be honest) photo of said persona. He usually also asked if the celebrity in question had any unpleasant memories of their time in La La Land (such as when diminutive Mexican comic actor Pedro Gonzalez-Gonzalez recalled missing the chance to play a regular role - a gardener - on the 1960 sitcom Pete and Gladys when costar Cara Williams vetoed it or when Danny Kaye deliberately sidelined him away from the camera during a number on his variety show.) We're merely relying on their side of the story, of course, but if something stood out to the point where they still feel the bitterness decades later, perhaps there is at least a kernel of truth to be found in what they are recalling. And after all the time in-between, they often felt no need to remain silent about it. So, in an effort to get another post up, I have sifted through one of these books (the 11th one in the series) to excavate some tidbits of testiness to be found among the participants. I don't know why I find it amusing when stars reveal their animosity for each other, but I do!

Kay Aldredge. A decorative 20th Century Fox starlet, Aldridge switched to being the lead in some Republic serials, notably Perils of Nyoka (1942), in which she played Nyoka. A year later she did Daredevils of the West opposite Allan "Rocky" Lane.

Aldridge, who retired after marrying in 1945, referred to Allan Lane as "the most conceited human being I have ever met." He certainly looked pretty handsome here! Maybe got a little too used to being adored...

Later adopting the "Rocky" Lane moniker, he portrayed the character Red Ryder in seven movies when the initial actor exited the role. Lane's most enduring contribution, though, could be his most secret one. From 1961-1966, he, covertly and without credit, provided the voice of the talking horse Mister Ed! Thirty years after his death, he was granted a TV Land Award for that performance.

Björn Andrésen. The sixteen year-old became quite an international sensation from his role in 1971's Death in Venice, as the object of desire for older man Dirk Bogarde. (The other young man in swimwear in Sergio Garfagnoli.) Andrésen, who has worked as an actor ever since though in far less notable projects and with much less emphasis on his looks, was startled to read in a 1984 Films in Review interview with Helmut Berger of his own demise! Berger said that he had died of a drug overdose!

Berger is shown above. Andrésen explains:

“We first met when we were seated across from each other at the dinner given after the premiere of the film in Rome. He was very rude, which confused me completely. I couldn't understand how someone could dislike me when we were total strangers. I learned later that he wanted to play 'Tadzio.' One version has it that Luchino [Visconti] had actually promised him the role.” Berger had worked for the director in The Witches (1967) and The Damned (1969) and would again after Venice.

We've featured James Franciscus here before and also reported on his TV series Mr. Novak. During Lamparski's interview with costar Dean Jagger (who departed the show after some significant issues with ulcers), the elder Oscar-winning actor shared a thought or two.

Despite its Technicolor presentation and the draw of Dorothy Lamour in another set of sarongs, Rainbow Island (1944) was not a tremendous hit and is all but forgotten today.

Here we find costars Eddie Bracken and Gil Lamb. Lamb has risen to fame as a gangling comedian who had a bit wherein he pretended to swallow a harmonica and then have funny sounds appearing to emanate from his throat. In his Lamparski interview, he addressed a then-hot local comic (George West) who'd appropriated that gag for himself:

“He never asked me if he could do my stuff, nor does he acknowledge me in the act. People tell me I should be flattered. I am not flattered. I am incensed.”

As for his pal in Rainbow Island, Lamb referred to Bracked as "that little bastard." Ha ha! I generally find that a little of Bracken goes a long way myself...

Not sure what the problem was between them, but the gents appeared to be rather undressed for many of the film's scenes. As an aside, Lamour turned down this movie and Yvonne De Carlo was promoted to the lead. Then she changed her mind and De Carlo was back in the ensemble... She was later quoted as saying, "You might have seen Gil Lamb chasing me through the bushes in it."

The gal in this colorful portrait in Catherine McLeod. She worked at many places during her career, but had this to say about 20th Century Fox:

“Stars are treated like stars on any set, but at Fox everyone knew his or her place and were damned well kept in it at all times. Who got a table first in the commissary, where that table was located, who got a chair on the set, where you parked your car, who spoke to you and who didn't – everything was determined by one thing only – what salary bracket you were in. I could never wait to get off that lot.”

Though she liked many of the actors she appeared with, she singled out Phil Carey (Return to Warbow, 1958) and Richard Boone (Have Gun, Will Travel) as two of the three actors she would least like to encounter again. She characterized Richard Widmark as the “worst bastard of all time!” (They worked together in Vanished, a 1971 TV miniseries.)

McLeod's last part in a feature was 1976's Lipstick and she had a pointed remark about the experience:

“[it was like] being back at Fox thanks to Mariel Hemingway.”

I couldn't help thinking that perhaps McLeod got her Hemingways mixed up. Because Mariel was but a 13 year-old total newcomer while older sister Margeaux was the star of the movie and a real big deal in the modeling world... (and was surely more egotistical and high maintenance than li'l sis!) I do find it fascinating, though, that you can be watching a movie and be completely unaware that a peripheral role is being played by someone who was once a leading player in their own right!

A Day at the Races (1937) was easily the most high profile and enduring movie of one Esther Muir. She got along fine with Groucho and the other Marx Brothers. But she did have something to say about a former husband, famed dance formation pioneer Busby Berkeley.

They never worked together, but “living with him was enough of a strain. Buz was a lovely person in many ways, but a real momma's boy. I was more his keeper than his wife. He had great gifts, but was very irresponsible.” Allegedly, Berkeley was a heavy drinker and reportedly tore Muir's dress off at a dance!

Perhaps you've seen actress Mary Murphy in The Wild One (1953) opposite Marlon Brando. She was married for a quick few months to handsome Dale Robertson, with this to say, years after their annulment:

“Dale is a lovely man. We're still good friend. There are a lot of men like that. They're great until they become your husband.”

Later she drifted into an affair with married talent agent Kurt Frings (whose wife Ketti wrote the Broadway play “Look Homeward, Angel.”) “Of course, he promised to marry me and, like a fool, I believed him – over and over. Not only did he control my private life, he represented me as well. I did not work one day during that whole period. And he was a 'big agent' as they say.”

There's always room for more Dale Robertson...! I thought you might like one more glimpse.

Alan Napier entered the world of eternal cult fandom when he took on the role of Alfred Pennyworth, the knowing and industrious butler on Batman. After a 1988 cast reunion, he had this to say:

“Jolly good to see them all again and even the Batmobile!

"...But I've never been able to workup much enthusiasm for 'The Boy Wonder.'” And, yes, Burt Ward has long been almost as equally annoying as he was appealing during his time in Robin's cowl...! His memoir... well, let's just forget it.

And finally, not all of the girls shown here are one and the same. The middle one is child actress Gigi Perreau. Flanking her is fellow child star Natalie Wood, who was apparently a keen rival of Perreau's according to the grown up Perreau. According to the Lamparski interview:

"Her only unpleasant recollection is of Natalie Wood, who was her classmate for a while in grammar school. The late actress passed notes in class that Gigi did not really understand, but that disturbed her – messages worded as warnings, to the effect that she would never become a star but that Natalie would." And, of course, Natalie did! But in her day, Perreau was no slouch.

Though Wood later emerged as a jaw-dropping beauty, Perreau was, for a time, actually more conventionally appealing than Wood, who took a while to grow into her features. Also in the interview:

"Van Heflin, whom she supported in Weekend with Father (1951), was the actor she liked the least. When he suspected she was stealing a scene, he threatened her with a knife" Um, wow....! I can only hope he was at least half-kidding!  Note that the tyke had third-billing in the posters for the movie.

Perreau is seen here with Heflin in said film. She's in-between the star and a shirtless Richard Denning, who's looking pretty good! Heflin and Perreau are all smiles here, so maybe she didn't happen to nab any of his limelight on this day. LOL

I may have to check this movie out sometime... It will be hard to look at the Governor on Hawaii 5-O exactly the same after this. Ha ha!

P.S.- My work life is still RIDICULOUS, hence the long wait in-between posts, but I have not given up. I'm still doing my best to get the occasional bit of blather up and ready asap. It just takes a lot longer, especially with the new interface on this site. It's easier to do photo essays such as the style here versus integrating text and pictures together. Till next time, be safe! Love, Poseidon.