Costume worn by Angela Lansbury in Broadway musical Mame: Museum Object and Cultural History
Costume worn by Angela Lansbury in Broadway musical Mame: date made: ca 1966. user: Lansbury, Angela. Object Name: Dress.
The object in the museum catalogue
Costume worn by Angela Lansbury in the role of Mame Dennis in the original Broadway production of the musical Mame. The cream satin gown with gray peau-de-soie overlay and white fur collar was designed by Robert Mackintosh for Lansbury to wear at the show’s finale. Lansbury biographer Martin Gottfried wrote that the show’s director Gene Saks asked Mackintosh to design a costume that would help her feel like a bona fide Broadway star taking the stage after her years working in film and radio. Mackintosh based the costume on a similar design by Bernard Newman for a gown Irene Dunne worn in the 1936 film Roberta.
Mame is a musical comedy with book by Jerome Lawrence and Robert Edwin Lee and music by Jerry Herman that opened on Broadway in 1966. The musical is based on the bestselling 1955 novel Auntie Mame by Patrick Dennis and Lawrence and Lee's 1956 Broadway play adaptation of the same name. It tells the story of the free-wheeling, eccentric Mame Dennis whose Bohemian lifestyle is interrupted by the appearance of her orphaned nephew Patrick. The story was also adapted as a 1958 film starring Rosalind Russell and a 1974 film adaptation of the musical starring Lucille Ball.
Materials, dates and provenance
- date made: ca 1966
- user: Lansbury, Angela
- Object Name: Dress
- Physical Description: rhinestone (overall material)
- Physical Description: lace (overall material)
- Physical Description: bone (overall material)
- Physical Description: silk (overall material)
- Physical Description: cotton (overall material)
- Subject: Musical Theater
- associated subject: Theater
- associated subject: Comedy
- ID Number: 2008.0027.01
- accession number: 2008.0027
- catalog number: 2008.0027.01
- Credit Line: Stephanie Troulman
- Data Source: National Museum of American History
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Catalogue descriptions and facts adapted from National Museum of American History through the Smithsonian's official Open Access dataset. This record explicitly marks its metadata CC0 1.0; formatting and selection have been changed.
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