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Oscar-winning costume designer Mary Lillian Wills was the daughter of school teacher Mary Josephine Champie (1889-1951) and family physician Dr. Euclid Clarence Wills (1883-1948). She studied at universities in New Mexico and Arizona, before moving to New York, making ends meet as a counter salesperson at Saks Fifth Avenue. Then came her big break: awarded a scholarship, Wills entered the Yale School of Art and Drama, eventually graduating with a Master’s Degree (in the process, becoming the first woman graduate from that department). Before long, Hollywood beckoned. Wills went on to work in films for forty years, beginning as a sketch artist on Gone with the Wind (1939). She mostly free-lanced, except for a spell between 1948 and 1952 when she was under contract at RKO (for Samuel Goldwyn). She became renowned as as 'the fabulous Miss Wills' for her excellence in creating authentic-looking period, dance and folk costumes for prestige films like Hans Christian Andersen (1952) and The Virgin Queen (1955). Her innate flair for fashion and glamour became known in Hollywood as ‘The Wills Touch’. Her intricate pencil sketches often included subtle backgrounds, which provided a measure of additional context. Wills won an Academy Award for Best Costume Design for The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm (1962).

In addition to her film work, she also designed costumes for the popular Shipstad & Johnson Ice Follies (from 1962 to 1967) and for the Buffalo Bill Wild West Show. She married and divorced four husbands, the last of these was Leonard Doss, who worked at Technicolor Inc. as a colour consultant for 20th Century Fox.

The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm

Mary Wills in The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm (1962)

Awards

Mary Wills

Academy Awards, USA

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