Biography

Deborah Nadoolman grew up in New York city standing in the back of the house at Broadway shows after her high school day was finished. She was awarded the first grant for Costume Design from the National Endowment for the Arts in the United States. After graduating from UCLA with an M.A. in Costume Design in 1975, she had a baptism in wardrobe working at NBC television. Her versatility was an asset for director John Landis for his The Kentucky Fried Movie (1977), in which a dozen distinct short segments were molded into a coherent whole. Nadoolman met Landis while a freshman at college, through a group of friends who had been to high school with him. Landis is a high school drop-out. In addition to two children, the relationship established a long-term film collaboration between the costume designer and the director, including the comedy classics National Lampoon's Animal House (1978) and The Blues Brothers (1980). The elaborate period of the 1940s was depicted in Steven Spielberg's 1941 (1979).

Her work with Spielberg continued with the iconic costume for Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), Louis Malle on Crackers (1984), and 'Costa Gavras' on Mad City (1997). Further designing for John Landis included Trading Places (1983), An American Werewolf in London (1981), ¡Three Amigos! (1986), Coming to America (1988), and the costumes for the groundbreaking music video Michael Jackson's Michael Jackson: Thriller (1983), winner of MTV's first music video award.

She is a two-term past president of The Costume Designer's Guild, Local 892, the union representing working Hollywood costume designers. In addition to writing the chapter "Designing Hollywood: Women Costume and Production Designers" in Women Designers in the USA 1900 - 2000, Pat Kirkham, Editor (Yale University Press, New Haven & London, 2000), and compiling and editing the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences catalogue 50 Costumes/50 Designers: Concept to Character (University of California Press, 2004) she is the author of Screencraft: Costume Design (Focal Press, London, 2003), Dressed: A Century of Hollywood Costume Design (Harper Collins, New York, 2007), and FilmCraft: Costume Design (Focal Press, 2012). Nadoolman wrote the first doctoral dissertation in the field of film costume design, Scene And Not Heard: The Role of Costume in the Cinematic Storytelling Process, and graduated with a PhD in the History of Design from the Royal College of Art in 2003. She is the David C. Copley Chair in Costume Design at UCLA's School of Theater, Film and Television, and Director of the David C. Copley Center for the Study of Costume Design at UCLA. She is the senior curator for the exhibition Hollywood Costume, opening October 20, 2012 at the V&A Museum in London, England.

Her award-winning theatrical credits include work for the Virginia Opera ("Turandot," 1993), American Conservatory Theatre ("Dinner at Eight," 1992 and "Gaslight," 1995) as well as the Mark Taper Forum ("The Waiting Room," 1994 and "Closer," 2000).
- IMDb mini biography by: Natasha Rubin

The iconic red jacket she famously designed for Michael Jackson's landmark Michael Jackson: Thriller (1983) was sold for $1.8 million at Julien's Auctions of Beverly Hills (CA) (27 June 2011).

Mother of Max Landis

Mother of Rachel Landis.

She was awarded the 1994 Drama Logue Award for Outstanding Costume Design for "The Waiting Room" at the Mark Taper Forum Theatre in Los Angeles, California.