Miles White
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Miles White (July 27, 1914 – February 17, 2000) was the top costume designer of Broadway musicals for 25 years. He is renowned in the entertainment industry for his beautifully rendered, prolific, imaginative and witty designs. He won major recognition, including four Donaldson Awards and two Tony Awards. The Donaldson Award was established in 1944 in honor of the founder of Billboard, W. H. Donaldson (1864–1925). These awards were offered in numerous categories, including best new play, best new musical, best performances, best debuts, and best costumes and set designs. They were discontinued in 1955 when it was recognized that they were redundant and overshadowed by more prestigious honors.
Miles White only designed five movies, but three of them garnered him Oscar nominations. These were The Greatest Show on Earth, There's No Business Like Show Business, and Mike Todd's Around the World in 80 Days.
White designed Rodgers and Hammerstein's first two Broadway hits, Oklahoma! and Carousel, and dozens of other musicals as well as ballets, ice shows, circuses, and TV productions. His career spanned almost a century, seventy years. His last Broadway show was Tricks, in 1973, for which he received a Tony nomination. As musicals were revived, the productions occasionally used his designs. This was true for Fall River Legend for the American Ballet Theater. In 1989 he redesigned the "High Button Shoes" number for Jerome Robbins' Broadway.
Broadway's current top costume designer, William Ivey Long, referred to Miles White as "his hero,"in a recording made of the March 20, 2000, memorial service at the York Theater. In this audio recording, he also cited White's "exquisite drawings," works of art in themselves, in addition to their role as working design sketches.
Douglas Colby, expert on theater design, tells the story of accompanying Miles to a performance of Fall River Legend several years ago. He said, "The distinguished costume designer Patricia Zipprodt approached the urbane, monocled gentleman I was accompanying, my friend Miles White, and introduced him to her guests as 'God.' One understood what she meant," Colby concluded. This information appears in the Playbill booklet distributed at the March 20, 2000 Memorial Service.
In her book Theater in America, Mary C. Henderson commented on how Miles White's designs were molded by both dance and the circus. "His costumes are constructed to move with the performer's body, not an easy feat," she said. After Oklahoma!, she noted, he dominated musical comedy costuming for more than 25 years."
[edit] Chronology
- 1938: Paradise Clue
- 1938: Right This Way (Broadway Debut)
- 1938: You Never Know
- 1939: Copacabana
- 1939: Walton Roof (Philadelphia)
- 1939: Versailles Supper Club
- 1940: It Happened On Ice
- 1941: Best Foot Forward
- 1941: Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus
- 1942: The Pirate
- 1942: Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus
- 1943: Ziegfeld Follies
- 1943: Early To Bed
- 1943: Get Away Old Man
- 1943: Oklahoma!
- 1944: Up In Arms ( film )
- 1944: Dream with Music
- 1944: Billy Rose's Diamond Horseshoe
- 1944: Bloomer Girl
- 1945: Carousel
- 1945: The Day Before Spring
- 1946: Gypsy Lady
- 1946: The Duchess of Malfi
- 1946: The Kid From Brooklyn (film)
- 1947: Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus
- 1947: High Button Shoes (original designs)
- 1947: Bloomer Girl (original designs)
- 1948: Fall River Legend
- 1948: Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus
- 1949: Carousel (original designs)
- 1949: Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
- 1949: Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus
- 1950: Bless You All (Tony Award)
- 1951: Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus
- 1951: Oklahoma! (original designs)
- 1951: Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus
- 1952: The Greatest Show on Earth (film)
- 1952: Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus
- 1952: Pal Joey
- 1952: Three Wishes For Jamie
- 1952: Two's Company
- 1953: Oklahoma! (original designs)
- 1953: Hazel Flagg (Tony Award)
- 1953: Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus
- 1954: There's No Business Like Show Business (film)
- 1954: Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus
- 1955: Ankles Aweigh
- 1955: Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus
- 1955: Strip For Action (Closed prior to NY)
- 1956: Around the World in Eighty Days
- 1957: Eugenia
- 1957: Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus
- 1957: Time Remembered
- 1957: Jamaica
- 1957: The Carefree Heart
- 1958: Tristan
- 1958: Oh, Captain!
- 1959: Cheri
- 1959: Take Me Along
- 1959: Show Business (Carol Channing on tour)
- 1960: Bye Bye Birdie
- 1960: The Unsinkable Molly Brown
- 1961: Show Girl
- 1961: Milk And Honey
- 1962: Song of Norway (on tour)
- 1963: Zenda
- 1966: Ice Capades
- 1969: 1491
- 1969: Oklahoma! (original designs)
- 1970: Candida
- 1971: A Day In The Life Of Just About Everyone
- 1972: A Quarter For The Ladies Room
- 1973: Tricks
- 1976: Best Friend
- 1977: The Ice Show
- 1989: Jerome Robbins' Broadway ("High Button Shoes" segment)
[edit] External links
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