Biography for
Deborah Nadoolman More at IMDbPro »

Date of Birth

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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 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 Thriller (1983) (TV), winner of MTV's first music video award.

She is the current 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, she is the author of Screencraft: Costume Design, Focal Press, London, 2003. Nadoolman has written 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 July 2003. Dr. Landis also compiled and edited the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences catalogue 50 Costumes/50 Designers: Concept to Character, University of California Press, 2004, and is currently working on A Century of Hollywood Costume to be published by HarperCollins, 2006.

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).

Spouse

Trivia

Mother of Max Landis

Mother of Rachel Landis.

Where Are They Now

(2007) Release of her book, "Dressed: A Century of Hollywood Costume Design".

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