Jack Bear

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Jack Bear (born October 19, 1920 in Indianapolis , Indiana , † November 20, 2007 in Ferndale , California ) was an American costume designer for film and television.

Live and act

Jack Bear had German-Danish roots. Born in Indianapolis, the Bear family moved to Cleveland in 1927 , where Jack first attended high school and then began studying arts at Ohio State University , which he completed with a Bachelor of Arts . Bear then went to California and trained in fashion design at the renowned Chouinard Art Institute. Bear began his career as the owner of a fashion store on La Cienega Boulevard in Los Angeles. But a little later he closed his business again because he received a worthwhile offer from the television station NBC to work in their costume design department. For more than a decade, Bear participated with his costume design ideas in shows such as the Hallmark Hall of Fame and the Matinee Theater, and during this time he outfitted stars such as opera singer Dorothy Kirsten and screen diva sisters Zsa Zsa Gabor and Eva Gabor .

After working for NBC, Bear followed a call from Paramount Pictures , where he initially worked under the patronage of colleague Walt Hoffman . While working on the tumultuous movie comedy The Great Race Around the World , Jack Bear met director Blake Edwards in 1964 . Both got along so well that Edwards Bear started in 1965 for his follow-up productions What did you do in the war, Daddy? , Gunn, Darling Lili, Missouri and The Murderer in the White Coat hired to dress the cast. Darling Lili alone devoured around 400 costume designs for Edward's wife Julie Andrews and her film partner Rock Hudson . Jack Bear and his colleague Donald Brooks received an Oscar nomination for this in 1971 . In those years, Bear also designed the costumes for the two turbulent hit comedies A Strange Couple with Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau and Der Partyschreck with Peter Sellers in the leading roles.

In 1972 Bear was also hired to design the dresses Julie Andrews would wear in her personality series The Julie Andrews Show . This earned Jack Bear a Primetime Emmy Award in 1973 . Afterwards he rarely designed the entire range of costumes for a film, but instead put together cloakrooms or only dressed men. His last (very labor-intensive) television job led Bear to the globally popular series Dallas for ten years (1979-1989) . As a result of his reputation, which has grown through his film and television activities, the theater also showed interest in his work. For example, the Pasadena Playhouse brought him for his production of the Shakespeare classic Romeo and Juliet to design the extensive Renaissance costumes.

Bear has also tried his hand at another field professionally: He bought houses several times, redesigned them and sold them again. From 1967 to 1968 he was a member of the board of directors of the American Costume Designer's Guild, the US professional organization for costume designers. At the moment of his death, Bear still had an abundance of the costumes he had once designed. In 2011, some of the bear costumes from the Julie Andrews Show were auctioned off.

Filmography (selection)

only as a costume designer

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Bear, Jack
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American costume designer
DATE OF BIRTH October 19, 1920
PLACE OF BIRTH Indianapolis , Indiana , United States
DATE OF DEATH November 20, 2007
Place of death Ferndale , California , United States