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- Adele Balkan (August 27, 1907 – November 20, 1999) was an American costume designer whose career spanned 40 years working on motion pictures during Hollywood's Golden Age of Classical cinema. Her credits for Paramount, Universal Studios, RKO, and 20th Century Fox include work on “Mighty Joe Young,” “The Blue Angel” (with May Britt), and The Fly. Balkan began her career in 1932 as a sketch artist on Cecil B. DeMille's Cleopatra. Much of Balkan's subsequent work was as a sketch artist assisting chief designers such as Edith Head, Travis Banton, Marjorie Best, Howard Greer, Irene, Charles LeMaire, Vittorio Nino Novarese, Renié, and Edward Stevenson. In an interview, Balkan described the role of the sketch artist and the potential for the relationship between the illustrator and designer. "The sketch artist was, primarily and solely, to sketch the design that the designer gave them. The designer created, and the sketcher illustrated. If the sketch artist knew how to create something, and if the designer was fond of that person, they'd kind of work together sometimes, and it gave the sketch artist a chance to create, and it gave the designer another pocket to take from. And they did it, and I mean, it was understood, nobody got excited about it." The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences interviewed Balkan shortly before her death in 1999. In this transcript, she discusses the suggestion, made by Edith Head, to make the costume sketch in the shape and proportions of the actress who would wear the garment. "That was very bad. They came out thick and short.... They had no sweep, they had no movement. You have to exaggerate. You have to really make a sketch that everybody's excited about. The producer, the director, the star. And then you have to work to make her look like that." (en)
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- Adele Balkan (August 27, 1907 – November 20, 1999) was an American costume designer whose career spanned 40 years working on motion pictures during Hollywood's Golden Age of Classical cinema. Her credits for Paramount, Universal Studios, RKO, and 20th Century Fox include work on “Mighty Joe Young,” “The Blue Angel” (with May Britt), and The Fly. (en)
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