Legendary Costume Designer Ray Aghayan, Longtime Partner of Bob Mackie, Dies at 83

Ray Aghayan, a 2-time Oscar nominee who won the very first Emmy Award for costume design, outfitted the glamorous Judy Garland, Barbra Streisand and Diana Ross and did the costumes for that frequent lowering and raising events from the 1984 Summer time Olympic games, died Tuesday in La. He was 83.Related Subjects•Obituaries Aghayan, the longtime partner of Bob Mackie, who began as his assistant, died of "unknown causes," the Archive of yankee Television stated Wednesday. Aghayan was instrumental in effective the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences to formally recognize the contribution of costume designers. With Mackie, he won the very first ever Emmy for costume design in 1967 for NBC's Alice With the Searching Glass. He continued to earn two more Emmys (among nine total nominations) and received work achievement award in the Costume Designers Guild in 2008. A local of Tehran, Iran, Aghayan was nominated for Academy awards for Norman Jewison's Vibrantly, Vibrantly (1969) with Mackie and Norma Koch for Lady Sings the Blues (1972) starring Ross as Billie Holliday and, again with Mackie, for Funny Lady (1975) starring Streisand. For Funny Lady, Aghayan and Mackie produced 40 complete nineteen thirties-style clothes -- not just dresses and suits, but the hats, mitts, jewelry and footwear -- for Streisand's Fanny Brice. The boy of the society couturier in Tehran, Aghayan at 14 designed the mourning clothes for that wife from the Shah of Iran, Full Fawzia. 3 years later, he convinced his mother to permit him to move by himself to La. After many years creating, pointing and creating costumes for their own productions, Aghayan got employment around the mid-nineteen fifties anthology series Matinee Theater (the live show needed a talent for quick costume changes). That brought to some stint as costume designer around the short-resided 1963-64 variety series The Judy Garland Show. Aghayan's film resume includes The skill of Love (1965), Our Guy Flint (1966), Dr. Doolittle (1967), Hannie Caulder (1971) with Raquel Welch and three Doris Day films: Don't Disturb (1965), The Glass Bottom Boat (1966) and Caprice (1967). Aghayan designed costumes for such stars asJulie Andrews,Fred Astaire,Gem Bailey,Lucille Ball,Diahann Carroll,Carol Channing,CydCharisse,Bing Crosby,SammyDavis,Dick Van Dyke,Barbara Eden,Lola Falana,Mitzi Gaynor,Betty Hutton,The Jackson Five,Danny Kaye,Peggy Lee,Shirley MacLaine,Dinah Shoreline andLeslie Uggams. He was nominated for any Tony Award in 1970 for Applause, and that he also designed on Broadway for Vintage 60 (which opened up in 1960), The Egg (1962), Around town (1971) and Channing's Lorelei (1974). Inside a 1997 interview using the Archive of yankee Television, Aghayan was requested why is a great costume design. One which "provides the actor the smoothness, helps the actor come to be that individual,Inch he stated. "And also to have the ability to assist the audience to check out might know what the heck it's they are searching at."Additionally to his focus on the La Olympic games, Aghayan created Consenting Adult, a landmark 1985 telefilm in regards to a gay boy being released to his family which was modified in the novel by Laura Z. Hobson. Younger crowd exceeded twelve Academy Award telecasts from 1968 to 2001. For that MGM Grand Hotel in Vegas in 1974, Aghayan and Mackie designed the outlet forHallelujah Hollywood, a $3 million tribute to classic MGM musicals that placed a fantastic 940 costumes. Related Subjects Obituaries