Australians in Hollywood : Biographical Notes

Orry-Kelly
With three Oscars to his name, the rarely photographed Orry-Kelly (1897-1964) remains Australia 's highest achiever at the Academy Awards. Born John Orry Kelly in Kiama, N.S.W, he studied art in Australia before moving to New York City in 1923 to pursue an acting career. That notion didn't pan out, and Kelly found work drawing subtitles for silent films instead. When Cary Grant, with whom Kelly had shared a New York apartment, showed some of the Australian's costume sketches to executives at Warner Brothers, the studio hired him. Having by now adopted the professional name Orry-Kelly, he served as chief designer for Warners from 1931 to 1945, during which time he clothed such stars as Bette Davis – who called him “my left hand” – and worked on such legendary films as The Maltese Falcon (1941) and Casablanca (1942). In 1951 he won his first Oscar, as one of the three costume designers for An American in Paris. He would win further Oscars for Les Girls (1957) and Some Like it Hot (1959), and received a fourth nomination for Gypsy (1963). Renowned for his hard drinking and foul tongue, and much loved by the actresses he dressed, Orry-Kelly once observed that “Hell must be filled with beautiful women and no mirrors.”

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