Daniel Orlandi with hats from "Trumbo" at Western Costume. Top and bottom photos by Iris Schneider.
Outside Western Costume Company it's a rainy January day, but inside it still feels like Christmas. That's because Trumbo costume designer Daniel Orlandi is doing a show and tell with Hedda Hopper's hats from the film. Just arrived back from various exhibits, the hats, kept in carefully labeled white boxes, are sumptuous and spectacular, even off the head of Helen Mirren, the actress who plays the late Los Angeles Times gossip columnist in the 2015 biopic about black-listed screenwriter Dalton Trumbo. Orlandi used pieces from his own collection to embellish the hats, including hand-painted and celluloid flowers that will melt if wet.
"Hats were her gimmick..they got her attention," Orlandi says of Hopper. "People would make her outrageous hats and she would wear them. It got her more publicity. And she was also this kind of malovent, ambitious woman. It was her way of saying, 'aren't I funny and cute? And now I'm going to go in for the kill.' "
Orlandi created all of the hats with the help of Western Costume's chief milliner Kerry Deco. In the millinery shop at the essential Hollywood institution's cavernous home on Vanowen Street in the Valley, they would come up with a design and add the trimmings to make the hats scream Hedda. "Kerry and I really had so much fun!," Orlandi said. "The thing about Hedda Hopper is that her hats didn't match her outfits. She wore hundreds. We didn't copy any of them but we certainly got the essence."
Orlandi was a natural choice to design the wide range of costumes for the large ensemble film that spans the 1940's to the 1970's. The veteran costume designer had to create glamorous evening looks as well as at-home wear (robes and pajamas), prison garb, children's clothing, and day suits. Bryan Cranston, the actor who played Dalton Trumbo, had multiple changes as did Mirren. Nothing the actors wore came about by accident.
"I love doing research," Orlandi said. He specializes in movies about real people and wants the costumes to be as authentic as allowed by the demands of the script. "I like to know as much as I can when I'm talking to the actors or the production designer. Bryan knew all about Trumbo so we had some really interesting discussions about how we wanted to contrast his flamboyance and eccentricity with Hedda Hopper's." They wanted Trumbo's costumes to reflect the quirkiness of a screenwriter often depicted editing scripts in the bathtub. "His suits were nicely patterned and I found some beautiful vintage woolens to make them in."
Production stills by Hilary Bronwyn Gayle/Bleecker Street
Orlandi learned the ropes of television and film costume design as a young assistant working for Bob Mackie in the 80's. "I learned how to work with performers, how to act in a fitting -- not to get too close. It's business, not personal." he recalls. "Everybody came in there. Tina Turner, Cher, Carol Burnett, Elton John." An especially fond memory is seeing Fred Astaire on the set of "Pennies From Heaven". He realized how much he enjoyed working with performers. "I really love working with actors and feel very protective of them. I love fittings...I don't like to dictate to them, it's more of a collaboration, like when an actor like Robert de Niro finds the right shoes and says 'yes, this is it!' It's THEIR performance."
Next up for Orlandi are two more biopics to be released this year. "The Founder," about McDonald's founder Ray Kroc, stars Michael Keaton and is directed by John Lee Hancock, with whom Orlandi worked on "The Blind Side" and "Saving Mr. Banks." "All the Way" reunites Orlandi with Bryan Cranston (as LBJ) and Jay Roach, "Trumbo's" director.
There's also an awards season coming up. "Trumbo" has already brought him a Costume Designers Guild Award nomination for excellence in period film. And this week are the Oscar nominations. If I had a vote, he'd get one just for those fabulous hats.
Bryan Cranston as Dalton Trumbo and Diane Lane, who plays his wife.
Hats from "Trumbo" at Western Costume.