Phyllis Dalton won her first Oscar in 1966 for designing – also abrading, staining, tattering and otherwise making more real – the 5,000-plus costumes of David Lean’s epic movie of Doctor Zhivago.
She clad Tsarist socialites and post-revolutionary masses, and talked extras out of shedding their Russian army greatcoats on location shooting in a hot Spanish summer. The star Julie Christie was uncomfortable in a sultry red satin gown vital to the story. Dalton and Lean persuaded her that her character would be ill at ease in it too, for the same reasons – sex and shame– so she should just let the dress inspire her performance.
