Albert Wolsky, the Oscar-winning costume designer known for films like “All That Jazz,” “Bugsy” and “Grease,” died on Saturday. He was 95. Wolsky died at his home in Hollywood. His passing was announced online by his friends, colleagues and a number of professional admirers.
Born on Nov. 4, 1930, in Paris, Wolsky and his family fled to the United States to escape the Nazis’ occupation of France. In America, he went to the City College of New York and served as part of the United States army for three years from 1953 to 1956, during which time he was largely stationed in Japan. Following his military career, Wolsky began working as an assistant to legendary Broadway costume designer Helene Pons. Wolsky worked with Pons on the costumes for the original Broadway production of “Camelot.”
It was not long before Wolsky began his own career designing costumes for Broadway shows. In the late 1960s, he kicked off his Hollywood career designing the costumes for television movies like “The Desperate Hours,” “A Hatful of Rain” and a production of John Steinbeck’s “Of Mice and Men” starring George Segal.
Wolsky went on to design the costumes for some of the most acclaimed movies of the 1970s, including “Harry and Tonto,” “The Gambler,” “Lenny,” “Manhattan,” “An Unmarried Woman” and “Grease,” becoming a favorite collaborator of filmmakers like Paul Mazursky and others. He received his first Oscar nomination and win for Best Costume Design for his work on writer-director Bob Fosse’s 1979 confessional musical epic “All That Jazz.”
He was nominated for Best Costume Design an additional six times throughout his career for “Sophie’s Choice,” “The Journey of Natty Gann,” “Bugsy,” “Toys,” “Across the Universe” and “Revolutionary Road.” He won his second and last Oscar in 1992 for “Bugsy.”
In the late ’90s, Wolsky designed the costumes for beloved films like “You’ve Got Mail” and “Galaxy Quest.” He later became a go-to collaborator throughout the 2000s for “American Beauty” filmmaker Sam Mendes, designing the costumes for “Road to Perdition,” “Jarhead” and “Revolutionary Road.”
In the final years of his career, he worked on five films from 2014 through 2022: 2014’s “Birdman,” 2016’s “Rules Don’t Apply,” 2019’s “Ad Astra,” 2021’s “The Woman in the Window” and 2022’s “Amsterdam.” He also served for four terms as a member of the Academy’s board of governors and was awarded the Costume Designer’s Guild Award for Excellence in Contemporary Film in 2015.
His partner of nearly 40 years, “All My Children” star James Mitchell, died in 2010.
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