Edith Head’s Legacy

1:38 PM PST 3/10/2011 by THR staff

In her day, the famed costume designer ruled at Paramount, dressing everyone from Grace Kelly to Elizabeth Taylor — all the while savvily self-promoting and getting her way.

Costume designer Edith Head — whose most unforgettable designs included Grace Kelly’s airy chiffon skirt in Hitchcock’s Rear Window, Gloria Swanson’s darkly elegant dresses in Sunset Boulevard, Dorothy Lamour’s sarongs and Elizabeth Taylor’s white satin gown in A Place in the Sun — survived 40 years of changing Hollywood styles by skillfully eschewing fads of the moment and, for the most part, grandeur and ornamentation, too. Boldness, she believed, was a vice.