{"id":19915,"date":"2017-10-24T22:56:54","date_gmt":"2017-10-25T04:56:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lastbestnews.com\/site\/?p=19915"},"modified":"2017-10-24T22:56:54","modified_gmt":"2017-10-25T04:56:54","slug":"designer-irene-raised-in-baker-wowed-hollywood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/2017\/10\/designer-irene-raised-in-baker-wowed-hollywood\/","title":{"rendered":"Designer ‘Irene,’ raised in Baker, wowed Hollywood"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Irene\"<\/a>

Irene Lentz, who was raised in Baker and went on to be one of the most successful clothing and costume designers in Hollywood history, is shown here in the 1940s, at MGM.<\/p><\/div>\n

She was the fabulous Baker, Mont., girl who had built \u201cIrene\u201d into a quality trademark.<\/p>\n

This fabled designer of magical gowns for the movies once led such a charmed career that she was known simple by her first name: Irene.<\/p>\n

Census records validate her birthplace as Brookings, S.D., in 1901, though myriad publications such as Cosmopolitan complicated matters with faulty statements such as this one, made in October 1943: \u201cFor this woman who sets styles for two continents was born plain Irene Lentz on a ranch in Montana.\u201d<\/p>\n

Twice Oscar-nominated for costume decoration and revered for her luxurious dresses, gowns and day skirts, Lentz undoubtedly came to Baker with her family at a young age and she was part of the fourth class to receive diplomas from Baker High School.<\/p>\n

The Lentz Brothers, Emil F., Irene\u2019s father, and his brother, Edward O., are listed in the 1910 Rosebud County directory as owners of a general merchandise store. When Baker High School\u2019s first declamatory contest was held in the opera house, Lentz was listed as a participant, and that same month, October 1915, another newspaper clipping identified her as a pupil in the piano class of Miss Pearl Young and as part of recitals at the Congregational church.<\/p>\n

Her name also appears in The Fallonite on Oct. 22, 1915, where she was identified as a soloist in the Rally Day exercises and program at the M.E. Sunday school. On April 15, 1916, the same paper listed Lentz as part of the Baker High School Oratorical Contest, performing \u201cPiano Solo\u201d and \u201cBetty Simkin\u2019s Man.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"CapreAir_Variable\"<\/a><\/div><\/div>Seemingly a natural-born performer, she also entertained members of the Laki Club in their homes and performed vocal and instrumental numbers at suppers in the Congregational church basement and for the 10 children who graduated from the Baker grade school. The July 23, 1915, edition of the Baker Sentinel contained this frivolous, yet adorable nugget of information: \u201cMisses Jeannette Price and Irene Lentz accompanied Mr. Price to Glendive on Tuesday and came back in a new Ford.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 1917, Irene Lentz excelled on the school debate team and played guard on the Baker High School girls\u2019 basketball team, \u201cpicturesque in duotone stockings,\u201d according to one newspaper. She also sang in the Easter program in the Methodist Sunday school. It was also reported that her father was part of an executive committee named by Gov. Sam Stewart urging Montana communities to encourage the planting of home gardens, which was \u201creceived with enthusiasm by Baker citizens.\u201d<\/p>\n

In April 1917, young Irene was recorded in public audits as being paid \u201c14.97\u201d for \u201ccomparing Carter county records\u201d and then \u201c16.65\u201d for similar duties in October. Her father, E.F. Lentz, was paid \u201c166.65\u201d for salary county clerk obligations. In November 1917, she and friend Beatrice Dougherty performed as a piano duet as part of a Red Cross fundraiser that brought in $43.60.<\/p>\n

\"Work\"<\/a>

Courtesy Bess True collection<\/p>

Irene hard at work, 1944.<\/p><\/div>\n

In addition to her schooling, Irene was part of the Literary Society and debate team. According to the April 4, 1918, issue of the Fallon County Times, \u201cMiss Irene Lentz was awarded the second prize,\u201d in the Declamatory Contest held at Baker High School. Her subject was \u201cThe Soul of a Violin,\u201d and her second-place prize was a handsome ring. The Lentz Orchestra is listed in the program as supplying the musical entertainment of the night.<\/p>\n

She was one of the four graduating students to be part of the fourth class to receive diplomas at Baker High School and was involved in the entertainment at the commencement, held in the Lake Theatre on May 22, 1919. The Baker Sentinel noted:<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile the class was small, only four graduating this year, it is one the city and school may well be proud of. The war was the cause of the small class as several boys who were Seniors tendered their services to Uncle Sam and-joined the colors.\u201d<\/p>\n

Planning to be a concert pianist, Irene traveled to California and enrolled in the music class at the University of Southern California, where she also dabbled in acting. In September 1923, The Baker Sentinel noted that Lentz would be supporting leading comedian Ben Turpin in a two-reel farce, \u201cTen Dollars or Ten Days.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMiss Irene Lentz, a former Baker girl, is making a name for herself in the Mack Sennett Film Company and is under the direction of Del Lord appearing in a new two reel comedy,\u201d the paper reported.<\/p>\n

In 1923, when Lake Theatre advertised \u201cTailor Made Man,\u201d the ad noted that the all-star cast featured \u201cone of our home girls, Irene Lentz, as the leading lady with Charles Ray.\u201d<\/p>\n

She spent time in Los Angeles in 1925, working as a movie extra along with designer Walter Plunkett. Around this time, her college roommate, with ambitions to be a designer of women\u2019s clothes, planned a night course at a Los Angeles designing school, but was too shy to go alone and persuaded Irene to accompanying her. After the first lesson, Irene decided she wanted to design clothes.<\/p>\n

Shortly after completing the course she opened a dress shop on the U.S.C. campus. Iinexpensive numbers were her specialty: top price, $29.50.<\/p>\n

Her designs caught the attention of the \u201cHollywood crowd.\u201d One result was her marriage to F. Richard Jones, a silent-film director, who financed her in a chic shop in Hollywood. But not long into their marriage, Jones died of tuberculosis, and she closed the shop and went to Europe alone.<\/p>\n

There she studied her trade and became the rare designer who could sow, pin and cut and, if she had to, turn out any garment single-handed.<\/p>\n

\"Glam\"<\/a>

Courtesy of Bess True collection<\/p>

Irene designed glamorous clothes and could be quite glamorous herself, as this undated photo attests.<\/p><\/div>\n

Shortly after her return to California, she was asked to head the ultra-swank, custom design shop at Bullock\u2019s-Wilshire. The Irene Salon opened at 9000 Sunset Blvd. and her designs in the 1930s were hailed as \u201cCalifornia Fresh\u201d in the press. It was reputed to be the first boutique committed to a single designer inside a major American store.<\/p>\n

She began dressing some of Hollywood’s biggest female stars in 1933, and, credited only as \u201cIrene,\u201d she began working for United Artists and Columbia Pictures.<\/p>\n

Irene amassed a following among the wealthy wives of studio execs, including MGM chief Louis B. Mayer’s daughters Irene and Edith. Then one day in 1942, Mayer offered her the job as head of MGM\u2019s costume department, replacing the famed Adrian (Connecticut-born Adrian Adolph Greenberg), who was leaving to start his own fashion line.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought maybe he wanted me to design wardrobe for some pictures,\u201d Lentz once said.<\/p>\n

According to one magazine, the move established her reign \u201cas the West\u2019s most sought-after designer.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to another contemporary fashion magazine, during this period Irene\u2019s \u201cfrugal Montana background proved something as a handicap.\u201d She could never look customers in the eye and tell them the elevated price, so she hired \u201ca stooge\u201d to follow her around on opening day and \u201canswer the embarrassing questions about price.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 1947, another group of about 25 stores, including Bergdorf Goodman and Neiman Marcus, provided half the capital for Lentz to leave MGM studio to set up her own enterprise. With the stores’ financing she made clothes exclusively for them to sell under her \u201cIrene\u201d brand name.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Irene went on to marry screenwriter Elliot Gibbons, brother of MGM Art Director Cedric Gibbons, and Irene\u2019s mother worked in a wardrobe department of the studio in Hollywood. Irene had learned to shoot in Montana and was apparently a fairly good hunter. She and her husband often joined the Gables on hunting trips. And their house was said to be “one of the show\u00a0places of California.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to most accounts, however, their marriage was unhappy and stressful, and when her husband departed on hunting to trips to Africa or other excursions, she moved into an apartment, attended by her most\u00a0faithful companion, Michael, her husband\u2019s Irish setter.<\/p>\n

Lentz\u2019s permanent claim to history is that she costumed Hollywood’s Golden Age stars for the big screen, including scandalously clad Lana Turner \u201cThe Postman Always Rings Twice,\u201d in 1946.<\/p>\n

She also dressed them in real life, boasting a celebrity clientele that would come to include Marilyn Monroe, Ava Gardner and Carole Lombard. Lentz was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Costume Design, Black-and-White, for \u201cB.F.\u2019s Daughter\u201d (1948) and Best Costume Design, Color, for \u201cMidnight Lace\u201d (1960). The final film she worked on appeared in theaters in 1963.<\/p>\n

On Nov. 15, 1962, a few weeks before her 62nd birthday, under an assumed name, Irene checked herself into Hollywood\u2019s Knickerbocker Hotel. She went to her room and downed two pints of vodka. She purportedly \u201cslashed her wrists\u201d and then leapt out an 11th-floor bathroom window. She landed on a suspension awning and her body was discovered later that night.<\/p>\n

A suicide note read: “I’m sorry. This is the best way. Get someone very good to design and be happy. I love you all, Irene.”<\/p>\n

She was interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale with first husband, F. Richard Jones.<\/p>\n

A few weeks before her death, Irene had allegedly confided in her friend, actress Doris Day, that \u201cshe had been in love with Gary Cooper\u201d and he was \u201cthe only man she had ever loved.\u201d (Cooper had succumbed to cancer the year before.)<\/p>\n

Day recalled that she got the feeling that she was first person with whom Irene had shared this information.<\/p>\n

\u201cThinking about it now,\u201d she wrote in \u201cDoris Day: Her Own Story,\u201d \u201cI cannot honestly say whether Irene\u2019s love was one-sided or whether she and Cooper had actually had or were having an affair.\u201d<\/p>\n

In her 1998 book, \u201cCooper\u2019s Women,\u201d author Jane Ellen Wayne wrote that Cooper and Irene would \u201cbecome involved in a relationship\u201d that continued over the years. It\u2019s plausible that their affair was real, considering that Cooper had a powerful hold on the many women he came to know and love, and even those he left behind. (Some have theorized that it\u2019s unlikely that Irene killed herself over Cooper, because, they\u2019ve claimed, she was a lover of Marlene Dietrich\u2019s.)<\/p>\n

Although she had earned large sums of money, at the time of her death she was broke and in ill-health. In the book \u201cLady Blue Eyes: My Life with Frank,\u201d Barbara Sinatra wrote that one night, toward the end of her life, Irene fell asleep with an electric blanket covering her head and woke up with her face paralyzed.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know much about the private Irene,\u201d said fashion designer Edith Head in an interview in the late 1970s. \u201cShe was not a happy woman. \u2026 I know she liked hunting and guns and the great outdoors. Deduce from that what you will.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a 1983 article in the Seattle Times, the author writes of the designer, “Irene reads like a Greek tragedy.\u201d \u201cShe had an unhappy marriage, a bad drinking problem, there were rumors of a romance with Gary Cooper that fell apart, and she never felt that the fashion press appreciated her.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the October 1937 Cosmopolitan, there is a two-page article on \u201cIrene\u201d of Hollywood, which stated that Irene \u201cwas born on a Fallon county homestead\u201d and received her education in Baker.<\/p>\n

That same article also summed up, in a few words, just how large and how unusual were the achievements of Irene Lentz, the girl from Baker, Mont.:<\/p>\n

\u201cIrene, at thirty-five, is responsible for every costume in every film produced by the largest moving picture company in the world (MGM). So far as her studio is concerned, Irene has no last name. Very few people get along like that. I can think of only two who did \u2014 Topsy and Cleopatra.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brian D\u2019Ambrosio is the author of numerous articles and several books, including \u201cWarrior in the Ring: A Life of Native American Boxer Marvin Camel,\u201d and \u201cRasta in the Ring: A Life of Rastafarian Boxer Livingstone Bramble,\u201d and \u201cWarriors on the Ice: Hockey\u2019s Toughest Talk.\u201d He may be reached at dambrosiobrian@hotmail.com<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

She was the fabulous Baker, Mont., girl who had built \u201cIrene\u201d into a quality trademark. This fabled designer of magical gowns for the movies once led such a charmed career that she was known simple by her first name: Irene.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":19918,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,18,16],"tags":[1188,5530,6386,6387],"class_list":["post-19915","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","category-diversions","category-montana","tag-baker","tag-hollywood","tag-irene-lentz","tag-mgm-studios","prominence-top-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19915","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19915"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19915\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19923,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19915\/revisions\/19923"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19918"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}