The great character actor Dean Stockwell has died at the age of 85. His acting career spanned 70 years, starting as a child star in the studio era of the 1940s, spanning well into the 21st century. The height of his career, after his childhood, was in the 1980s and 1990s in classic films like Dune, Paris Texas, Blue Velvet, Married to the Mob (Oscar nomination) and To Live and Die in LA.
But his greatest role was as Al, the holographic sidekick, in the 1989-1993 sci-fi show Quantum Leap. His performance was so funny, so moving, so brilliant that he crafted one of the most unlikely and great characters in TV history.
Last year, in the doldrums of the pandemic, I interviewed Jean-Piere Dorleac, the talented costume designer for Quantum Leap who outfitted Dean Stockwell in all kinds of memorable garbs. You can read the interview and lots more about this great show here.
In the summer of 2020, during the depths of COVID, one of the few bright spots of that dark time was interviewing Jean-Pierre Dorleac, a legendary Hollywood costumer designer. He worked on numerous movies and TV shows over the decades but easily one of the highlights of his career was as the costumer for the early 1990s TV show Quantum Leap.
Even though there are now a billion shows on TV and streaming, Quantum Leap remains one of my favorite shows ever. The story of Sam Beckett (Scott Bakula), a brilliant scientist who "leaps" into the lives of other people throughout his own lifetime (roughly 1953-1995), making right where once went wrong, was one of the most imaginative, best written, funny, and emotionally wrenching shows ever on TV. (He was accompanied on his journey by Al, a holographic sidekick appearing from the Imaging Chamber back in the future). Each week Sam leaped into the a new time and place, on a new mission -- and Jean-Pierre Dorleac was the costume design genius who had to dress the characters from different times and places each week, along with designing Al's funky 1990s costumes.
It was a wild, fascinating interview, and I'm grateful to this day that Jean-Pierre agreed to do this interview.
Well, whaddya know? Quantum Leap is back! A reboot pilot has been greenlit for NBC and show "leap" to our screens sometime later this year or next. I'm cautiously excited -- these reboots can be wonderful or a disaster. But it's exciting to know that Quantum Leap remains beloved almost 30 years since it left the air and that the interest exists to re-imagine it and bring it back. I hope it's great. Sadly, Dean Stockwell, who brilliantly played the sidekick Al, won't be a part of it because he passed away late last year.
Anyway, I hope you'll read my interview with Jean-Pierre and also sign the Change.org petition to bring him back as the costume designer for the reboot. His costumes on that show stood out and it would be great to see him apply his genius to the next generation of this show. You should also read the beautiful tribute that Jean-Pierre wrote about Dean Stockwell last year after his death.
We live, now and forever, in the "Golden Age of Television." TV shows are better than ever, thanks to cable and streaming. Television is no longer the "boob tube" of yore, the poor relation of movies, but a proud artistic medium in its own right. The Wire, Mad Men, Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones, Orange is the New Black, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel are just a few of the great "golden age" shows, featuring superior storytelling, acting, and cinematic qualities that capture our imagination and enrich our culture.
So when did the Golden Age of TV start?
Opinions differs, but the general "consensus" (if there can be such a thing) is that it began with two shows from the 1990s: Twin Peaks in 1990 and The Sopranos in 1999. Both shows broke normative TV boundaries, were daring, unsentimental, and nontraditional in their narratives, forcing viewers to watch people and things other shows shied away from -- and were hailed as masterpieces.
I mostly agree but, pour moi, the Golden Age of TV started on March 26, 1989 -- thirty years ago today!
That's when Quantum Leap premiered -- a show about a brilliant scientist named Sam Becket from the (then) future of 1995, who invented a time travel project called "Quantum Leap" where his mind and soul "leapt" into the bodies of people in the past. His time travels were limited to the past of his own lifetime (roughly the early 1950s to the 1980s). Once Sam became someone else, his mission was to "change history for the better", "to make right what once went wrong." He was regularly visited from the future by his friend Al, who "appeared in the form of a hologram that only Sam can see and here." Al would give Sam the info about his missions, tell him about the "wrongs" he needed to "right", give him information from the future about the fate of the people Sam saved, and then after Sam accomplished his mission -- and only then -- would Sam leap into another life and point in time i.e. another episode.
I was obsessed with this show as a kid. I love time travel stories and history so this show was made for me. All my friends were fans too, and we talked about it practically every day. Quantum Leap was also, as a piece of pure TV art, stunningly good -- great writing, acting, and very original storytelling. So much of TV drama in the late 1980s/early 1990s was crime shows, lawyer shows, soap operas -- and here was this inventive, completely original show that exploded the hour-long drama narrative and did it amazingly well.
There wasn't another show like it on TV then and there hasn't been a show quite like it since.
Sam didn't just leap into lives but touched history, and the show was about the (then) recent past that America in the late 1980s/early 1990s was still grappling with. At times the show could be serious, at time it could be heart-wrenching, and at other times it could be hilariously funny. It tackled everything -- Vietnam, civil rights, Watergate, the women's movement, pop culture, you name it – Quantum Leap was a history lesson and drama wrapped into science fiction. Brilliant.
Quantum Leap starred Scott Bakula as Sam and Dean Stockwell as Al. Their chemistry, their repartee, their banter, the ups and downs of their buddy-dom is the stuff of legend, fascinating to behold -- they were funny, emotional, witty, and compulsively watchable together. They were and remain one of the great duos in TV history.
And each week there was a huge new cast of guest stars, including some actors who went on to have brilliant careers: Jennifer Aniston, Joseph Gorden-Levitt, Teri Hatcher, Diedrich Baeder, Michael Madsen, Bruce McGill, Jason Priestley, Patricia Richardson, Carla Gugino, and others. They all did memorable work.
One thing that was so much fun about this show was that each week Sam not only leapt into another time (one week it was the mid-1950s, another it was the late 1970s, then the '60s, the '80s, and so forth) but also different places including the South, the Midwest, California -- and, naturally, NYC.
There were many great NYC Quantum Leap episodes -- Sam became a cab driver, an actor, a butler, a fashion photographer, a gangster, amongst others. However, my favorite NYC Quantum Leap episode was when he leapt into the life of a Chip'N'Dale's dancer named "Rod the Bod" in 1979. The episode begins with Sam leaping into Rod's life while he is literally dancing in mid-air, crashing to the ground in front a bunch of horny and screeching women, Cool and the Gang's "Ladies Night" blaring. It's one of the funniest things I've ever seen and was the kind of comedy (and drama) that only Quantum Leap could provide.
You can find old episodes of Quantum Leap on Amazon and behold the birth of the Golden Age of TV, and see NYC portrayed in a way that's never been done before or since.
In the depths of COVID back in 2020 I had the luck of finding the Emmy-winning, Oscar-nominated costume designer Jean-Pierre Dorleac on social media. He was an funny, outrageous "shit poster", telling stories of his Hollywood past and his raw, unfiltered opinions of the various people he knew and worked with.
Most of all, Dorleac was the costume designer on the early-1990s show Quantum Leap which was, and remains, one of my favorite shows ever.
When I contacted Dorleac in those dark days to see if he would do an interview for Mr NYC, I was happily shocked when he agreed. And he gave a lively one for this little blog and for that I'm eternally grateful. Most of all, I was interested in how he costumed the Quantum Leap characters in different decades, especially bringing NYC to life in the 1950s, 60's and '70s.
Sadly Dorleac has passed away at the age of 83. He certainly had an interesting life and he made a great contribution to the culture. Heck, just the costumes he designed for Dean Stockwell on Quantum Leap were enough to burn him into legend!
The brilliant, lovable character actor just died from cancer at the age of 57. For many, including yours truly, he will always been Standford from Sex and the City -- a real NYC icon.
But Willie had great range as an actor. In addition to numerous movies and other TV shows (including one that ran for a few years called White Collar), he appeared in two episodes of my favorite childhood show Quantum Leap -- one as a character named Seymour in an early episode set in NYC, and then another where he played Lee Harvey Oswald. His Oswald was an interesting one because Willia played Oswald "in the waiting room" set in the future, and he had to wear a white jump suit while being interrogated by Dean Stockwell. Great stuff!
“Theorizing that one could time travel within his own lifetime … "
In the early 1990s, when I was a youngster, the Golden Age of Television had yet to arrive. There were no streaming shows and cable television didn't have many original (or good) shows then. The big networks still ruled absolutely. Hit shows were watched by twenty to thirty million people each week, and even lesser-rated shows got around ten million or so viewers. The audience sizes back then are unimaginable today. This was the era of LA Law, Doogie Howser, thirtysomething, Cheers, The Cosby Show, Growing Pains, Dallas, etc. -- shows about lawyers, doctors, cops, families, etc. which were mostly boring to me and my fellow adolescents. But there was one show that was a huge exception, standing out and shining brightly like a star, a show that my friends and I were utterly obsessed with – Quantum Leap. Quantum Leap was one part science fiction, one part history lesson of the second half of the twentieth-century, and one part buddy comedy. It’s about a brilliant scientist named Sam Beckett who, in the late 1990s, builds a time machine called Project Quantum Leap and finds himself “leaping” into the bodies and lives of different people at different places in the past. Sam is accompanied on his leaps by his friend from the future, Al – a cigar-chomping, quip-a-minute retired Navy man who appears as a hologram (Al steps into something called an imaging chamber at Project Quantum Leap linked to Sam’s brain, and only Sam can see and hear him – except for, as we learn, small children and the mentally disabled). In each episode, Al tells Sam what history he must change, what he needs to “make right that once went wrong” so that Sam can then “leap out” and into a new adventure or – as is always teased – back home to the future.
And for a show about time-travel, it’s fair to say that Quantum Leap was way ahead of its time. When Sam landed in a new place and time each week, the episode would hook the viewers in with the music and clothes and scenery – and that would brilliantly set the stage to introduce the characters and, more deeply, force us to confront much that was uncomfortable in our recent past. Years before #MeToo and Black Lives Matter, Quantum Leap made Americans reckon with their county’s ingrained racism and sexism. While the stories and characters might be sentimental, it was always brutally honest: yes, the South in the 1950s was racist as hell; yes, the New York City corporate world of the 1960s was sexist as hell (this was more than 25 years before Mad Men felt the need to remind us week after week); yes, the military was deeply homophobic; yes, the Cuban Missile Crises and Kennedy Assassination made everyone nuts; and yes, the Vietnam war was a tragedy that haunts our country, even to this day. Yes, the second half of the twentieth century in America was a wild, crazy place -- and Quantum Leap dramatized it so well and so originally. Quantum Leap ran from 1989 until 1993 and each week was a masterclass in writing, acting, and production Along with shows like Twin Peaks, Larry Sanders and The Days and Night of Molly Dodd, it paved the way for the Golden Age of Television that we enjoy today. As I mentioned, for a show that jumped around several decades between the 1950s and 1980s, the costumes were extremely important. And the costumes on Quantum Leap were brilliant – they accentuated the characters, gave them a dimensionality beyond the story and script, rooted them not only in the time and place they were living in but also were extensions of who these particular people were – and helped us understand what was going wrong with them so that Sam could set their lives to right. Almost all the costumes on Quantum Leap were the work of one man, Jean-Pierre Dorleac, a name that popped out every week in the opening credits. Jean-Pierre has had a truly legendary career in show business, designing costumes for the original Battlestar Gallactica in the late 1970s and other classic shows like Max Headroom, Airwolf, and Jake and the Fatman as well as movies like The Blue Lagoon and The Only Thrill. He’s won an Emmy and worked in theater and opera as well, all over the world. His long and successful career is a tribute to his great talent and eye for how the costume can help make the character. Jean-Pierre has a lively Twitter presence and, while he had a long and varied career in many mediums, it’s clear that his time on Quantum Leap was very special to him. He was the costume designer for almost every episode (except the last five) and he probably had the biggest, most challenging, and most enjoyable costume design job in all of television history. That’s why it was AWESOME that Jean-Pierre was kind enough to answer some of Mr NYC’s fanboy questions about his career, his work on Quantum Leap (especially some of the NYC episodes), and what he thinks the legacy of the show is in the 21st century, almost 30 years since it went off the air. Thank you so much for doing this interview Jean-Pierre. First, I would like to say thank you very much for your interest in my work, especially “QUANTUM LEAP.” Tell us a little bit about your background and how you became a costume designer. I have been in show business since I was 10 years old, when I was featured in a review in England (where I received my formative education) singing and dancing to a popular song of the era. “Keep Your Sunny Side Up.” My performance, which turned out to be quiet entertaining and captivating, launched me on the road of entertainment. I went on to perform in stage productions, radio and eventually television and film as an actor. Sometimes, due to restricted budget, I made my own costumes from scratch. In the sixties when I was studying for a degree in Historic Apparel, I went to work for various designers in Paris as a workroom assistant, shopping textiles, making patterns, and helping in fitting (by handing the designer pins at first). Dior, Cardin, and Givenchy were amongst the notable designers I worked for. I was still doing theater at the time, which at times, required my participation in the costumes I wore. One of the plays I did, “Oh, Dad, Poor Dad, Mama’s Hung You in the Closet and I’m feeling So Sad,” lost its costume designer to illness, and I volunteered to take over. My work created such sensational reviews, I thereafter concentrated more on the designing aspect of entertainment than on being a performer. Soon, because of my special knowledge in 18th Century apparel, I was asked to be the historical consultant to the costume designer for the Royal Shakespeare’s production of Peter Weiss’ bizarre play, “Marat/Sade” concerning the aftermath of the French revolution as performed by the inmates of a mental institution outside Paris. It won many awards and brought me to New York when it opened there, and consequently to Los Angles where the east coast world premiere was staged. I won the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle award for the costume designs in 1973. Fate had a very funny, supplementary hand in its success, which is fully explained in my book, “The Naked Truth” available at Amazon.com, eBay, and at my website www.jean-pierredorleac.com. In time, I realized through my experiences in the making of costumes for the theater, and the expertise I have developed in couture creations, it had culminated in an ability to create costumes that had an underlying, subliminal message, placing them apart from just being attractive and in sync with the narrative. Within three years I did another two dozen well-known plays in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Seattle, New York, Paris, Berlin, London, and Hawaii. And through them, I caught the attention of Edith Head, who then mentored me. Before long, renowned actress, Nancy Walker, requested me to do her costumes alone for her new series in 1977, “Blansky’s Beauties.” Through this, I was inducted into the entertainment’s union, The Costume Designers Guild, that opened more doors to other venues, like my first feature with Henry Fonda, Susan Sarandon and Eileen Brennan, “The Great Smokey Road Block” (a terrible title on a badly shot film with a sensational cast, that bombed). Although I had become pigeon-holed as mostly a period costume designer, Universal recognized my special talents in fantasy and I was offered Battlestar Galactica in 1978, for which I went on to win an Emmy.
I, of course, jumped at the chance to do the show, mainly because it would offer a different aspect of my abilities to the industry as well as the public. You worked on lots of TV shows and movies over the decades but, on Twitter, it seems like your work on Quantum Leap remains close to your heart. How did you end up working on the show? One of the associate producers on Battlestar Galactica was Don Bellisario. Matter of fact, he wrote the script for which I won my Emmy. Following the series demise, Don produced a wonderful show entitled The Tales of the Gold Monkey. During its run, he asked me to do a spinoff series from Magnum P.I, that never was aired, but I did become his favorite designer. So, years later, when Quantum Leap was done, he called me in after they shot the pilot episode, to redo a lot of the scenes in it, specifically an entirely new wardrobe for Dean Stockwell, playing a very sybaritic fellow named “Al.” I stayed and did EVERY show in all the season thereafter, except for the last five when I left the production to do Heart and Souls in San Francisco with Robert Downey, Jr., Kyra Sedgwick, Elizabeth Shue, Charles Grodin, and Alfre Woodard. For nearly every episode you had to design costumes for a different decade between the 1950s and 1980s, as well as for a different part of the country. It must have been a both big creative joy and challenge. How did you approach creating costumes for not only a specific era but also for totally new characters each time? By the time Quantum Leap came along, I had developed a knowledge of the 20th Century that surpassed all the other earlier periods. I don’t think you could fill half-a-page of what I DON’T KNOW regarding the trends in fashion for the last hundred and fifty years. Therefore, QL came easy to me. I didn’t have to do much research for any of the episodes unless I was looking for something that was out of the ordinary. The one thing that comes to mind immediately was the 18th Century stylization for the wedding dress in “Sea Bride”. I wanted to design something lovely, because it was a wedding dress, yet something comical at the same time, so that Beverly Leech has to struggle with it in the opening scene when she has to hide in the ship’s small stateroom closet. I remember combing old 1957 magazines to find that Dior had used a pannier for some of his gowns at that time, and that gave me the idea for the design I needed. Everything else in that show, including the drop-dead red tango dress, and all the shows, thereafter, just came off the top of my head. Character costume ideas come from the script. They are born when I begin to read it and then grow into a full figure by the end. Having learned from past endeavors, I want the character to blend with the other actors so there is continuity within their scenes yet have some unique characteristic that sets them apart. It requires imagination, especially with men, as they aren’t as bedecked as women. There is an adage that goes, “If it ain’t on the page, it ain’t on the stage.” I saw on Twitter that in one episode you had to create KKK outfits and that it was a hard and painful thing to do. What were some of the hardest costumes you had to create as well as some of the most fun? Having lived and worked on five continents in the same number of decades, I have tried to learn as much as I can about people. One, it helps me incorporate character in my design, and two, I learn about diversity and how it brings individuality to everyone. Each person has something wonderful to express in how they dress, no matter how much someone else thinks differently. Everyone’s ideas and concepts matter. The two things I abhor are bigots and fabulist. I have a hard time with titles as well, as I have always felt they cover a lot of sins. I’ve met as many people with an academic, medical, engineering, theatrical, artistic, and other degrees, as I have met people who know more by experiencing life and learning the hard way through vocational training. I believe the value of someone’s abilities lie in the merit of their work, not how much they can attract the public’s fancy by being a flash in the pan with a glorified handle. Having to generate a faction of history by making KKK robes, as there were none from the 50’s in existence, mainly due to changes in design, I was faced with having to create the actual monstrosities, including The Grand Dragon in red. It upset me very much, just in knowing how abhorrent the sight of them would be to many people that were my friends, especially in the south, where the episode occurred.
In other episodes of QL, over the years, I had to come up with Nazi and Russian uniforms, but they were ordered from costume houses. They were not of my creation. But the KKK robes that I watched being constructed, really left me sick. On the other hand, there were many fun things I did for the show that left me elated. There was “Play It Again Sam,” (with the widow who couldn’t help it, if she looked good in black), “Sea Bride,” “One Strobe Over the Line” (glamor, glamor, glamor)“A Single Drop of Rain,” “Glitter Rock,” (Rock the Redhead), “Miss Deep South” (especially the silly Carmen Miranda get-up for ‘Quanta La Gusta’), “What Price Gloria” (Sam’s dinner ensemble with the quivering feather hat), “Private Dancer,” “Southern Comfort” (all those wanton women in lingerie) and “It’s a Wonderful Leap,” among many. Okay, let’s get to the NYC part. You designed the costumes for the brilliant episode “What Price Gloria” where Sam becomes a secretary dealing with sexual harassment. What are your memories about that episode and the challenges of making Scott Bakula an attractive, dignified professional woman in 1961 NYC? It didn’t start with Sam. Nothing ever did. It started with Gloria, who you are supposed to be seeing. She was a gorgeous woman. It’s always easy to dress gorgeous women as everyone looks at their faces, not what they’re wearing. And if she were curvy and appealing, it was even easier. I choose simple sheaths that weren’t revealing in anyway at the office, with smart but subtle jewelry. As the story progressed, I selected more feminine styles when we realized that it wasn’t how Gloria presented herself that was making the wolf howl, it was his vain glorious believe in himself.
I tried to choose designs that were very reminiscent of the early 60’s and especially chic because it took place in New York City’s business world. I was helped in keeping the look light by the fact that it took place in October of 1961, in the Big Apple. Having lived there at the time, I knew what the weather could be like. One of the best episodes of Quantum Leap, as well as maybe the best NYC episode, is “Private Dancer” where Sam becomes a Chippendales’ dancer in 1979 and saves a deaf lady from a horrible fate. That episode is both one of the most hilarious and poignant episodes of TV I’ve ever seen on any show (the beginning of the episode, where Sam leaps into the dancer mid-jump, with screaming women all around, Kool and Gang’s “Ladies Night” blaring in the background is one of the funniest things ever). Also, it was probably the most realistic portrayal of late 1970s NYC I’ve ever seen, the costumes are clearly from the 1970s but don’t have a “paper-dollish” look and seem to capture how these struggling dancers at that time would have really dressed. What do you remember about working on that episode? Well, it wasn’t about putting Sam in next to nothing as the Zorro dressed dancer! That was fun. What was a lot of work, were the dresses to be used in the dance sequences. I had seen Debbie Allen’s choreography in other films and knew I was going to have to have outfits that twirled, floated, and looked seductive, yet classy. They also couldn’t look expensive as these dancers had no money and when they bought things, they tended to stay with styles similar to workout/rehearsal garments. Debbie Allen’s white gown, at the disco, was little more than four panels of triangular shaped wedges of white matte jersey with self-string straps, belt, and a self-wrapped turban. And the red handkerchief dress worn for the final audition by the young girl was silk jersey with a minimal scattering of sequins at the V-neckline and at the edges of the numerous skirt panels. I wanted simplicity at its best for these scenes as the dance was supposed to be the center of attention and where your mind should linger. The last NYC episode I’ll ask about is “It’s a Wonderful Leap” that takes place in 1958. In that episode you had to turn Scott Bakula into a Jewish cab driver. His costume and look in that episode, especially the glasses, is quite memorable (so much so that Stephen Colbert referenced that episode in 2015 because, sadly, it includes a child Donald Trump). I also remember all the costumes had a vibrant, 1950’s feel about them. Was that a fun episode to work on (Trump excluded)? Funny, but I have blanked out tRump being in it! God knows why…ha ha ha ha! Yes, “It’s a Wonderful Leap” was a wonderful show. After the various times I had spent in NYC, I was quite knowledgeable regarding Hell’s Kitchen, so Sam’s costume was quite easy to put together. I think I only bought one hat to the fitting as I knew it was perfect with the turtlenecks, scarf and beaten jacket of a cabdriver. The glasses were something I picked out from a selection that Props had, as they are a prop item on a shoot. Most of my time was spent with my old, dear friend Liz Torres. I had known her since 1975 when she had appeared at the Backlot Room of Studio One, in Hollywood. Liz is one of the most talented actresses in the world who can sing like a bird, dance like a ballerina, and realistically act the hell out a scene. I knew I didn’t have to create much of a character for her as it would all come from her. So, I went for a magical look in whites and grays that didn’t grab your attention, giving away the fact that she was ghost from the 20’s. We made everything, including her hat, shoes, coat, and dress that was beaded. I found old garters and we rolled her stockings down to just below her knees and rouged them…very de rigueur for a flapper of that period. Longshots on television are rare, so when Liz found out there was going to be one on the street, she spoke with the director first, and then improvised the Charleston dance step so the audience could see our efforts with the stockings and garters. She was definitely one of my favorite actresses of all the ones that I’ve ever worked with. The rapport between Sam (Scott Bakula) and Al (Dean Stockwell) was amazing, they worked brilliantly together. Did you ever get to watch them work and create that magic? Yes, many times. I went to the set every day when they were on the lot, and many times when they were on location as well. A major part of my job as a costume designer for film or television, is being on the set to establish a new costume that has never seen before, not even by Dean. Having been in the business for so many years, Dean didn’t like to deal with fittings. So, he and I established a look for him at the beginning. I also had the studio tailor take all his sizes. After a month, we were so in sync, I simple designed his outfits without anyone’s input, and took them to the set the day they worked. He would put them on in his motor home, and then come out with his cigar and parade around the set where all the grips, lighting technicians, sound, camera men and props would ooh and ah about how crazy they were. He loved showing them off as much as he did acting in them. He and Scott worked together in tandem as they were both extremely professional and didn’t mess around; it was always a business, that they made appear like fun. But they always knew their lines and hit their marks right on time. No one had to wait for either of them. Finally, even though the show’s been off the air for almost 30 years, my friends and my wife still love it. What do you think is Quantum Leap’s legacy? Was it one of the shows that paved the way for the later Golden Age of TV? I think its legacy was the great scripts. I don’t remember too many that didn’t hold my interest all the way though. I loved the fact that they also taught some moral responsibility amidst all the foolery. Plus, even though it was achieved though writer manipulation, there was usually a pretty rewarding and uplifting ending that sometime was quite nostalgic. I’m very rewarded by the followers on Twitter, who, for the most part, didn’t see the show when it was first released, but have becomes fans over the decades from the many times it has aired. That is very unusual for a TV series; it hasn’t been that way with the many other shows I’ve done. But I’m forever getting a residual check for the episode I appeared in, “Shock Theater,” so I know the show is always airing somewhere in the world. And I’m grateful after all these years that it has become the phenomenal cult hit it is. Between it, “Somewhere in Time,” and “Battlestar Galactica” my costumes have been exhibited all over the world and I have lectured as much as I have done. Examples of my creations have been exhibited worldwide. Benefits for AIDS Project Los Angeles have celebrated my work, as have The Mannequins Auxiliary of the Assistance League of Southern California where an hour long, dazzling fashion show paraded my creations. The Los Angeles County Museum of Arts showcased my costumes and sketches in their exhibition and book, HOLLYWOOD AND HISTORY: COSTUME DESIGN IN FILM, as well as exhibitions at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City; La Palais de la Civilization, Montreal, Canada; and La Place Vendôme, Paris, France. Recently, ATAS exhibited thirteen examples at the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising in Los Angeles, in a presentation of award-winning television costumes. What a career! What a legacy! Thank you so much Jean-Pierre! Make sure to visit Jean-Pierre’s website and check out his book at the links above. Also, delve into Mr. NYC’s QL fandom here.
