Edith Head, California/Berkeley - Mu, 1968 Woman of the Year

Chances are the movie credits on the screen at the height of Hollywood productions would have included the name Edith Head. A winner of eight Academy Awards for her costumes that dressed the stars for their motion picture roles, Edith Head far outdistanced anyone else. Good clothes, she said, "were the result of a pretty thorough-going knowledge of the people you are dressing." As a designer, she was actually part of a team, a team that translated a star into a different person he or she was playing. Edith's designs had an influence on fads and fashion beyond Hollywood. She was the author of several books. She was very interested in the way people dressed, and through a CBS radio program called "Fashionscope" and her books, "How to Dress for Success" and "The Dress Doctor," tried to raise the taste of the American public. She was a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the Screen Actors Guild, The Fashion Group, and was president of the Costume Designers Guild. She graduated from the University of California/Berkeley and Stanford. Edith Head started her career at Paramount Studios as a sketch artist and later became head designer.