Tony Duquette
Encyclopedia
Tony Duquette was an American artist who specialized in designs for stage and film
.
, California and an internationally acclaimed artist and designer. Duquette grew up between Los Angeles, California where he wintered with his family and Three Rivers
, Michigan
where the family lived during the rest of the year. Considered an American design Icon, as a student, Duquette was awarded scholarships at both the prestigious Chouinard Art Institute
in Los Angeles and the Yale
School of the Theatre. After graduating from Chouinard he began working in promotional advertising, creating special environments for the latest seasonal fashions. He also began to free lance for well-known designers such as the legendary William Haines, James Pendleton and Adrian. In the early 1940s Duquette’s parents and siblings moved permanently to Los Angeles where Tony had been living since 1935. It was during this time that Duquette was discovered by Lady Elsie de Wolfe Mendl, the international arbiter of taste. Through the patronage of Sir Charles and lsie de Wolfe|Lady Mendl], Duquette was able to establish himself as one of the leading designers in Los Angeles, where he worked increasingly for the films, creating beautiful costumes and settings for many Metro Goldwyn Mayer productions under the auspices of the great producer, Arthur Freed
and the celebrated director, Vincente Minnelli
.
Seemingly at the height of his success designing costumes and settings for the movies, interiors for Mary Pickford
and Buddy Rogers
, jewelry and special furnishings for Lady Mendl, as well as numerous night clubs and public places, Duquette entered the army.
He served in the United States Army
during the Second World War for four years and received an honorable discharge. After the liberation of Paris, he accompanied Sir Charles and Lady Mendl on their return trip to Europe and was introduced to their many friends on the continent.
in 1947, Duquette continued his works for private clients and for the theatre and motion pictures. Tony Duquette presented his first exhibition at the Mitch Liesen Gallery in Los Angeles and shortly thereafter was asked to present his works at the Pavilion de Marsan of the Louvre Museum, Paris
. This was an unprecedented exhibition as Duquette was the first American artist to have been so honored with a one man showing at the Louvre. Returning from a year in France
, where he received design commissions from the Duke
and Duchess of Windsor and the Alsatian industrialist Commandant Paul Louis Weiller, Duquette was honored with a one man showing of his works at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art
.
This was one of many one man museum exhibitions in which Duquette’s works would be exhibited, including exhibitions at the M.H. de Young Museum
and Palace of the Legion of Honor in San Francisco, The California Museum of Science and Industry and Municipal Art Gallery
in Los Angeles
, The El Paso Museum of Art
, The Santa Barbara Museum of Art
, The Museum of the City of New York
, as well as one man exhibitions in Dallas, Chicago
, Rio de Janeiro
and Phoenix, Arizona
.
In 1956, with his wife Elizabeth, who he affectionately called “Beegle” (a nickname derived from the industry of the bee and the soaring poetry of the eagle), he opened a salon in the converted silent film studios of actress Norma Talmadge
. The Tony Duquette Studios in Los Angeles have since become legendary as the setting where the Duquettes entertained their celebrated and talented friends such as Arthur Rubenstein, Aldous Huxley
, Jascha Heifitz and Greta Garbo
.
, Ireland
and France as well as New York
, Dallas, San Francisco, South America
and the Orient. Duquette created elegant interiors for Doris Duke
, Norton Simon
and J. Paul Getty
, a castle in Ireland for Elizabeth Arden
and a penthouse in the Hawaiian Islands
. His interiors for commercial and public spaces are well known, notably the Hilton Hawaiian Village, Sheraton Universal Hotel, and sculptures and tapestries for the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Chicago as well as the Los Angeles Music Center
and the University of California at Los Angeles. Other design triumphs in films and theatre include “Yolanda and the Thief”, “Lovely to Look At”, “Kismet” and “The Ziegfeld Follies” for MGM, as well as “Jest of Cards”, Beauty and the Beast” and “Dance Concertants” for the San Francisco Ballet
. Operas for which Duquette has designed both costumes and settings include “Der Rosenkavelier”, “The Magic Flute” and “Salome”. His designs for the original Broadway production of “Camelot” won Duquette the coveted “Tony Award” for “Best Costume”.
His monumental work of environmental art “Our Lady Queen of the Angels”, which was created as a gift to the people of Los Angeles in honor of that city’s bicentennial, was seen by hundreds of thousands of visitors over a three year period, at the California State Museum of Science and Industry at Exposition Park
.
In 1979 the Duquettes formed the Anthony and Elizabeth Duquette Foundation for the Living Arts, a non-profit public foundation whose purpose is to present museum quality exhibitions of artistic, scientific and educational value to the public and to purchase, promote and preserve the works of Tony Duquette. Past exhibitions have been presented by the foundation at California’s historic Mission San Fernando and through the Los Angeles Unified School District
including “Designs for the Theatre”, “The Art of the Found Object” and “The Fabric Mosaic Tapestry”. The foundation has sponsored exhibitions and lectures on the decorative arts in Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York and Texas in conjunction with museums and other foundations and on the university level through the U.C.L.A. extension series. A second “Celebrational Environment” was presented in San Francisco honoring Saint Francis of Assisi, the patron saint
of that city. To house the exhibition Tony Duquette purchased an abandoned synagogue
which he restored and renamed “The Duquette Pavilion of Saint Francis”.
tapestries.
at his 150-acre ranch 34.092971°N 118.967278°W in the Malibu
Mountains of California.
Christened “Sortilegium”, which is Latin for “enchantment”, Duquette expended all of his efforts to create a living work of art. After many years of creative efforts this work was also destroyed, this time by the Green Meadows fire Fire of 1993. Fortunately the work in progress had been extensively chronicled on television and by national and international magazines before its complete destruction. The Malibu property “Sortilegium”was acquired by Francie Rehwald in 2007 who hired architect David R. Hertz to design a home on one of the previous Duquette building pads. Following Duquette's legacy David Hertz conceived an idea to create a house from from the wings of a Boeing 747-200. The house is known as the 747 Wing House
with Mary Pickford as matron of honor and Buddy Rogers
standing as Tony’s best man. The reception that followed was attended by the who’s who of Hollywood including Gloria Swanson
, Greta Garbo
, Fred Astaire
, Vincente Minnelli
, Louella Parsons
, Hedda Hopper
, Oscar Levant
, Vernon Duke
, and Marion Davies
. The young couple, whose particular talents complimented each other’s, collaborated on many design commissions together and were sought out as an attractive addition to the Hollywood social scene. After 46 years of marriage and artistic collaboration with Tony, Elizabeth died from Parkinson’s disease in Los Angeles. Up until his death at the age of 85, Tony Duquette continued creating magical interiors, extraordinary one of a kind jewelry and works of art. For his 80th birthday he created a new “Celebrational Environment” entitled “The Phoenix Rising from His Flames”, which was presented at U.C.L.A. at the Armand Hammer Museum of Art and Cultural Center in Los Angeles.
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
.
Biography
Tony Duquette was a native of Los AngelesLos Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
, California and an internationally acclaimed artist and designer. Duquette grew up between Los Angeles, California where he wintered with his family and Three Rivers
Three Rivers, Michigan
Three Rivers is a city in St. Joseph County in the US state of Michigan. The population was 7,811 at the 2010 census.Three Rivers derives its name from the confluence of the St. Joseph River with its tributaries the Rocky and Portage Rivers. It is the home of St...
, Michigan
Michigan
Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....
where the family lived during the rest of the year. Considered an American design Icon, as a student, Duquette was awarded scholarships at both the prestigious Chouinard Art Institute
Chouinard Art Institute
The Chouinard Art Institute was a professional art school founded in 1921 in Los Angeles, California, by Nelbert Murphy Chouinard .-Founder:...
in Los Angeles and the Yale
YALE
RapidMiner, formerly YALE , is an environment for machine learning, data mining, text mining, predictive analytics, and business analytics. It is used for research, education, training, rapid prototyping, application development, and industrial applications...
School of the Theatre. After graduating from Chouinard he began working in promotional advertising, creating special environments for the latest seasonal fashions. He also began to free lance for well-known designers such as the legendary William Haines, James Pendleton and Adrian. In the early 1940s Duquette’s parents and siblings moved permanently to Los Angeles where Tony had been living since 1935. It was during this time that Duquette was discovered by Lady Elsie de Wolfe Mendl, the international arbiter of taste. Through the patronage of Sir Charles and lsie de Wolfe|Lady Mendl], Duquette was able to establish himself as one of the leading designers in Los Angeles, where he worked increasingly for the films, creating beautiful costumes and settings for many Metro Goldwyn Mayer productions under the auspices of the great producer, Arthur Freed
Arthur Freed
Arthur Freed was born Arthur Grossman in Charleston, South Carolina. He was a Jewish American lyricist and a Hollywood film producer.- Biography :Freed began his career as a song-plugger and pianist in Chicago...
and the celebrated director, Vincente Minnelli
Vincente Minnelli
Vincente Minnelli was an American stage director and film director, famous for directing such classic movie musicals as Meet Me in St. Louis, The Band Wagon, and An American in Paris. In addition to having directed some of the most famous and well-remembered musicals of his time, Minnelli made...
.
1935-1945
Mary Pickford
Mary Pickford was a Canadian-born motion picture actress, co-founder of the film studio United Artists and one of the original 36 founders of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences...
and Buddy Rogers
Buddy Rogers
Buddy Rogers may refer to:*Charles Rogers , aka "Buddy" Rogers, American actor and jazz musician*Buddy Rogers , aka "Nature Boy", stage name of wrestler Herman Rohde...
, jewelry and special furnishings for Lady Mendl, as well as numerous night clubs and public places, Duquette entered the army.
He served in the United States Army
United States Army
The United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...
during the Second World War for four years and received an honorable discharge. After the liberation of Paris, he accompanied Sir Charles and Lady Mendl on their return trip to Europe and was introduced to their many friends on the continent.
1947-1960
Upon his return from EuropeEurope
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
in 1947, Duquette continued his works for private clients and for the theatre and motion pictures. Tony Duquette presented his first exhibition at the Mitch Liesen Gallery in Los Angeles and shortly thereafter was asked to present his works at the Pavilion de Marsan of the Louvre Museum, Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
. This was an unprecedented exhibition as Duquette was the first American artist to have been so honored with a one man showing at the Louvre. Returning from a year in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, where he received design commissions from the Duke
Duke of Windsor
The title Duke of Windsor was created in the Peerage of the United Kingdom in 1937 for Prince Edward, the former King Edward VIII, following his abdication in December 1936. The dukedom takes its name from the town where Windsor Castle, a residence of English monarchs since the Norman Conquest, is...
and Duchess of Windsor and the Alsatian industrialist Commandant Paul Louis Weiller, Duquette was honored with a one man showing of his works at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art is an art museum in Los Angeles, California. It is located on Wilshire Boulevard along Museum Row in the Miracle Mile vicinity of Los Angeles, adjacent to the George C. Page Museum and La Brea Tar Pits....
.
This was one of many one man museum exhibitions in which Duquette’s works would be exhibited, including exhibitions at the M.H. de Young Museum
M. H. de Young Memorial Museum
The M. H. de Young Memorial Museum, commonly called simply the de Young Museum, is a fine arts museum located in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. It is named for early San Francisco newspaperman M. H...
and Palace of the Legion of Honor in San Francisco, The California Museum of Science and Industry and Municipal Art Gallery
Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery
The Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery is located in the Barnsdall Art Park in Los Angeles, California. It focuses on the arts and artists of Southern California.-Main building:...
in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
, The El Paso Museum of Art
El Paso Museum of Art
Founded in 1959, The El Paso Museum of Art is located in downtown El Paso, Texas. First accredited in 1972, it is the only accredited art museum within a 250 mile radius and serves approximately 100,000 visitors per year. A new building was completed in 1998...
, The Santa Barbara Museum of Art
Santa Barbara Museum of Art
The Santa Barbara Museum of Art is an art museum located at 1130 State St. in downtown Santa Barbara, California.It was founded in 1941 and currently ranks amongst the top 10 regional art museums in the United States . It is home to both permanent and special collections, the former of which...
, The Museum of the City of New York
Museum of the City of New York
The Museum of the City of New York is an art gallery and history museum founded in 1923 to present the history of New York City, USA and its people...
, as well as one man exhibitions in Dallas, Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
, Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro , commonly referred to simply as Rio, is the capital city of the State of Rio de Janeiro, the second largest city of Brazil, and the third largest metropolitan area and agglomeration in South America, boasting approximately 6.3 million people within the city proper, making it the 6th...
and Phoenix, Arizona
Phoenix, Arizona
Phoenix is the capital, and largest city, of the U.S. state of Arizona, as well as the sixth most populated city in the United States. Phoenix is home to 1,445,632 people according to the official 2010 U.S. Census Bureau data...
.
In 1956, with his wife Elizabeth, who he affectionately called “Beegle” (a nickname derived from the industry of the bee and the soaring poetry of the eagle), he opened a salon in the converted silent film studios of actress Norma Talmadge
Norma Talmadge
Norma Talmadge was an American actress and film producer of the silent era. A major box office draw for more than a decade, her career reached a peak in the early 1920s, when she ranked among the most popular idols of the American screen.Her most famous film was Smilin’ Through , but she also...
. The Tony Duquette Studios in Los Angeles have since become legendary as the setting where the Duquettes entertained their celebrated and talented friends such as Arthur Rubenstein, Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Leonard Huxley was an English writer and one of the most prominent members of the famous Huxley family. Best known for his novels including Brave New World and a wide-ranging output of essays, Huxley also edited the magazine Oxford Poetry, and published short stories, poetry, travel...
, Jascha Heifitz and Greta Garbo
Greta Garbo
Greta Garbo , born Greta Lovisa Gustafsson, was a Swedish film actress. Garbo was an international star and icon during Hollywood's silent and classic periods. Many of Garbo's films were sensational hits, and all but three were profitable...
.
1960-1970's
During the 1960s and 70’s the Duquettes continued to travel extensively, working in AustriaAustria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
, Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
and France as well as New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, Dallas, San Francisco, South America
South America
South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...
and the Orient. Duquette created elegant interiors for Doris Duke
Doris Duke
Doris Duke was an American heiress, horticulturalist, art collector, and philanthropist.-Family and early life:...
, Norton Simon
Norton Simon
Norton Winfred Simon , in the United States was a millionaire industrialist and philanthropist based in California. A significant art collector, he is the namesake of the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, California.-Early life:...
and J. Paul Getty
J. Paul Getty
Jean Paul Getty was an American industrialist. He founded the Getty Oil Company, and in 1957 Fortune magazine named him the richest living American, whilst the 1966 Guinness Book of Records named him as the world's richest private citizen, worth an estimated $1,200 million. At his death, he was...
, a castle in Ireland for Elizabeth Arden
Elizabeth Arden
Florence Nightingale Graham , who went by the business name Elizabeth Arden, was a Canadian-American businesswoman who built a cosmetics empire in the United States. At the peak of her career, she was one of the wealthiest women in the world.-Biography:Arden was born in 1884 at Woodbridge, Ontario,...
and a penthouse in the Hawaiian Islands
Hawaiian Islands
The Hawaiian Islands are an archipelago of eight major islands, several atolls, numerous smaller islets, and undersea seamounts in the North Pacific Ocean, extending some 1,500 miles from the island of Hawaii in the south to northernmost Kure Atoll...
. His interiors for commercial and public spaces are well known, notably the Hilton Hawaiian Village, Sheraton Universal Hotel, and sculptures and tapestries for the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Chicago as well as the Los Angeles Music Center
Los Angeles Music Center
The Music Center is one of the three largest performing arts centers in the nation. Located in downtown Los Angeles, the Music Center is home to the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Ahmanson Theater, Mark Taper Forum and Walt Disney Concert Hall...
and the University of California at Los Angeles. Other design triumphs in films and theatre include “Yolanda and the Thief”, “Lovely to Look At”, “Kismet” and “The Ziegfeld Follies” for MGM, as well as “Jest of Cards”, Beauty and the Beast” and “Dance Concertants” for the San Francisco Ballet
San Francisco Ballet
The San Francisco Ballet is a ballet company, founded in 1933 as the San Francisco Opera Ballet. The company is currently based in the War Memorial Opera House, San Francisco, under the direction of Helgi Tomasson. SFB is the first professional ballet company in the United States...
. Operas for which Duquette has designed both costumes and settings include “Der Rosenkavelier”, “The Magic Flute” and “Salome”. His designs for the original Broadway production of “Camelot” won Duquette the coveted “Tony Award” for “Best Costume”.
His monumental work of environmental art “Our Lady Queen of the Angels”, which was created as a gift to the people of Los Angeles in honor of that city’s bicentennial, was seen by hundreds of thousands of visitors over a three year period, at the California State Museum of Science and Industry at Exposition Park
Exposition Park
Exposition Park is the name of more than one place:*Exposition Park - a neighborhood in south Dallas, Texas*Exposition Park - A former baseball park in Kansas City...
.
In 1979 the Duquettes formed the Anthony and Elizabeth Duquette Foundation for the Living Arts, a non-profit public foundation whose purpose is to present museum quality exhibitions of artistic, scientific and educational value to the public and to purchase, promote and preserve the works of Tony Duquette. Past exhibitions have been presented by the foundation at California’s historic Mission San Fernando and through the Los Angeles Unified School District
Los Angeles Unified School District
Los Angeles Unified School District is the largest public school system in California. It is the 2nd largest public school district in the United States. Only the New York City Department of Education has a larger student population...
including “Designs for the Theatre”, “The Art of the Found Object” and “The Fabric Mosaic Tapestry”. The foundation has sponsored exhibitions and lectures on the decorative arts in Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York and Texas in conjunction with museums and other foundations and on the university level through the U.C.L.A. extension series. A second “Celebrational Environment” was presented in San Francisco honoring Saint Francis of Assisi, the patron saint
Patron saint
A patron saint is a saint who is regarded as the intercessor and advocate in heaven of a nation, place, craft, activity, class, clan, family, or person...
of that city. To house the exhibition Tony Duquette purchased an abandoned synagogue
Synagogue
A synagogue is a Jewish house of prayer. This use of the Greek term synagogue originates in the Septuagint where it sometimes translates the Hebrew word for assembly, kahal...
which he restored and renamed “The Duquette Pavilion of Saint Francis”.
1980's-Death
Final projects, which he completed with the assistance of his business partner and design collaborator of 30 years, Hutton Wilkinson included interiors for an 18th century Parisian apartment located on the historic Place de Palais Bourbon in Paris and creative interiors for the historic 12th century Palazzo Brandolini on the Grand Canal in Venice.San Francisco Fire
In 1989, much of Tony's original art in the Duquette Pavilion was destroyed in a tragic fire. Included in the destruction was a creation titled “Celebrational Environments”. Hailed as an invention of an art form, it consisted of monumental 28 feet tall metal sculptures and giant (20 X 20 foot) jewel studded fabric mosaicMosaic
Mosaic is the art of creating images with an assemblage of small pieces of colored glass, stone, or other materials. It may be a technique of decorative art, an aspect of interior decoration, or of cultural and spiritual significance as in a cathedral...
tapestries.
Malibu Fire of 1993
Following the fire in San Francisco, the Duquettes put all their efforts into creating a modern Shangri-laShangri-La
Shangri-La is a fictional place described in the 1933 novel Lost Horizon by British author James Hilton. Hilton describes Shangri-La as a mystical, harmonious valley, gently guided from a lamasery, enclosed in the western end of the Kunlun Mountains...
at his 150-acre ranch 34.092971°N 118.967278°W in the Malibu
Malibu
Malibu may refer to:Places:* Malibu, Baja California, a beach in Rosarito Beach Municipality, Baja California* Malibu, British Columbia, a camp near the entrance of Princess Louisa Inlet...
Mountains of California.
Christened “Sortilegium”, which is Latin for “enchantment”, Duquette expended all of his efforts to create a living work of art. After many years of creative efforts this work was also destroyed, this time by the Green Meadows fire Fire of 1993. Fortunately the work in progress had been extensively chronicled on television and by national and international magazines before its complete destruction. The Malibu property “Sortilegium”was acquired by Francie Rehwald in 2007 who hired architect David R. Hertz to design a home on one of the previous Duquette building pads. Following Duquette's legacy David Hertz conceived an idea to create a house from from the wings of a Boeing 747-200. The house is known as the 747 Wing House
Marriage
In 1949 Duquette married the beautiful and talented artist Elizabeth Johnstone at a private ceremony at PickfairPickfair
Pickfair was a 56 acre estate in the city of Beverly Hills, California designed by architect Wallace Neff for silent film actors Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford. Coined "Pickfair" by the press, it was once one of the most celebrated homes in the world...
with Mary Pickford as matron of honor and Buddy Rogers
Buddy Rogers
Buddy Rogers may refer to:*Charles Rogers , aka "Buddy" Rogers, American actor and jazz musician*Buddy Rogers , aka "Nature Boy", stage name of wrestler Herman Rohde...
standing as Tony’s best man. The reception that followed was attended by the who’s who of Hollywood including Gloria Swanson
Gloria Swanson
Gloria Swanson was an American actress, singer and producer. She was one of the most prominent stars during the silent film era as both an actress and a fashion icon, especially under the direction of Cecil B. DeMille, made dozens of silents and was nominated for the first Academy Award in the...
, Greta Garbo
Greta Garbo
Greta Garbo , born Greta Lovisa Gustafsson, was a Swedish film actress. Garbo was an international star and icon during Hollywood's silent and classic periods. Many of Garbo's films were sensational hits, and all but three were profitable...
, Fred Astaire
Fred Astaire
Fred Astaire was an American film and Broadway stage dancer, choreographer, singer and actor. His stage and subsequent film career spanned a total of 76 years, during which he made 31 musical films. He was named the fifth Greatest Male Star of All Time by the American Film Institute...
, Vincente Minnelli
Vincente Minnelli
Vincente Minnelli was an American stage director and film director, famous for directing such classic movie musicals as Meet Me in St. Louis, The Band Wagon, and An American in Paris. In addition to having directed some of the most famous and well-remembered musicals of his time, Minnelli made...
, Louella Parsons
Louella Parsons
Louella Parsons was the first American news-writer movie columnist in the United States. She was a gossip columnist who, for many years, was an influential arbiter of Hollywood mores, often feared and hated by the individuals, mostly actors, whose careers she could negatively impact via her...
, Hedda Hopper
Hedda Hopper
Hedda Hopper was an American actress and gossip columnist, whose long-running feud with friend turned arch-rival Louella Parsons became at least as notorious as many of Hopper's columns.-Early life:...
, Oscar Levant
Oscar Levant
Oscar Levant was an American pianist, composer, author, comedian, and actor. He was more famous for his mordant character and witticisms, on the radio and in movies and television, than for his music.-Life and career:...
, Vernon Duke
Vernon Duke
Vernon Duke was a Russian-American composer/songwriter, who also wrote under his original name Vladimir Dukelsky. He is best known for "Taking a Chance on Love" with lyrics by Ted Fetter and John Latouche, "I Can't Get Started" with lyrics by Ira Gershwin, "April in Paris" with lyrics by E. Y...
, and Marion Davies
Marion Davies
Marion Davies was an American film actress. Davies is best remembered for her relationship with newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst, as her high-profile social life often obscured her professional career....
. The young couple, whose particular talents complimented each other’s, collaborated on many design commissions together and were sought out as an attractive addition to the Hollywood social scene. After 46 years of marriage and artistic collaboration with Tony, Elizabeth died from Parkinson’s disease in Los Angeles. Up until his death at the age of 85, Tony Duquette continued creating magical interiors, extraordinary one of a kind jewelry and works of art. For his 80th birthday he created a new “Celebrational Environment” entitled “The Phoenix Rising from His Flames”, which was presented at U.C.L.A. at the Armand Hammer Museum of Art and Cultural Center in Los Angeles.