| Wiliam Ware Theiss | |
|---|---|
| Born | November 20, 1931 Medford, Massachusetts |
| Died | December 15, 1992 (aged 62) Los Angeles, California |
| Occupation | Costume designer |
| Years active | 1960 - 1988 |
William Ware Theiss (November 20, 1931 – December 15, 1992),[1] also called Bill Theiss, was a costume designer for television and film.
His film credits as costume designer include Spartacus, Harold and Maude, Bound for Glory, Pete's Dragon (uncredited), Who'll Stop the Rain, Butch and Sundance: The Early Days, The Man with One Red Shoe, and Heart Like a Wheel. His television credits include Star Trek and Star Trek: The Next Generation, for which he won an Emmy.[2]
Theiss was born in Medford, Massachusetts, the son of Harold Hetherington Theiss and Helen Theiss, and was named for his paternal grandfather, William Hodgson, and his paternal grandmother's family, Ellen (Ware) Hodgson.[3] He attended Lowell High School in San Francisco and graduated from Stanford University with a Bachelor of Arts as an art major, minoring in sciences, biology and chemistry before a four-year stint in the United States Navy. He eventually moved to Los Angeles and attended Art Center for eight semesters.[4] His first Hollywood job was as a personal secretary to Cary Grant[5], whose ex-wife, actress Dyan Cannon, Theiss cited as having considerable influence on his career.[6]
Contents |
Following six months at Universal Studios as an apprentice artist in the Advertising Art Department, Theiss worked at CBS in the Wardrobe Department on two televised soap operas. The film The Pink Panther was his first as a designer,[4] although he is credited as "wardrobe consultant". He returned to television as a wardrobe man for shows including Hollywood Palace and My Favorite Martian. His break as costume designer for “The World of Ray Bradbury" on stage brought him to the attention of Gene Roddenberry, who then hired Theiss as costume designer for Star Trek. In the 1970s and early 80s he designed costumes for at least a dozen TV movies, including Genesis II and The B.R.A.T. Patrol, as well as for over a dozen motion pictures, including three Academy Award for Costume Design nominations for 1976's Bound for Glory, 1979's Butch and Sundance: The Early Days, and 1983's Heart Like a Wheel. His final credit was as costume designer for Star Trek: The Next Generation, for which he won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Costume Design for a Series for the episode The Big Goodbye.
The "Theiss Titillation Theory"—which claims that "the degree to which a costume is considered sexy is directly proportional to how accident-prone it appears to be"—is named after him.[7] A key example of this idea in practice is the gynoid costume in the Star Trek episode "What are Little Girls Made Of?" in which the revealing top portion consists only of two crossing straps of material that connect in one piece to trousers, and—Theiss's personal favorite—the gown featured in the episode "Who Mourns for Adonais?": a backless dress in which the front of the dress was held up by the weight of the train which fell over the shoulder to the floor.[4]