Arts & Life

Tony-winning costume designer dies at 58

By The Associated Press
Average: 4 (1 vote)

NEW YORK — Two-time Tony Award winner Martin Pakledinaz, who designed hundreds of costumes for stars such as Sutton Foster and Patti LuPone, has died, his agent said Monday. He was 58.

Pakledinaz died Sunday at his home in New York after a long battle with cancer, according to Patrick Herold, his agent.

Pakledinaz received Tonys for his designs for Kiss Me Kate in 2000 — with Marin Mazzie and Brian Stokes Mitchell — and Thoroughly Modern Millie, two years later with Foster, whom he also dressed for her Tony-winning turn in Anything Goes.

“My characters were defined from the fabric, the seams, the details of his work, his eye. I feel honoured to know him, to love him, to call him a friend and collaborator and to be graced by his talent,” Foster said in a statement.

Pakledinaz’s additional Tony nominations include his work on Anything Goes, Lend Me A Tenor, Blithe Spirit, Gypsy, The Pajama Game, Golden Child and The Life. He most recently nabbed a nomination for this season’s Nice Work If You Can Get It.

He also designed costumes for the San Francisco Ballet, the Mark Morris Dance Group, the Metropolitan Opera’s Iphigenie en Tauride, the 2011 Radio City Music Hall Christmas Spectacular and the film My Week With Marilyn.

Other highlights include costuming Natasha Richardson and Liam Neeson in Eugene O’Neill’s Anna Christie in 1993, Grease with Laura Osnes, The Golden Ticket at the Opera Theatre of St. Louis and Kevin Kline as Hamlet in 1990.

LuPone, who starred in the 2008 Broadway revival of Gypsy, recalled that Pakledinaz would turn up with medals he’d found in flea markets and attach them to the coat she appeared in during the first act.

Those medals, she said, are treasured mementos. “I am grateful for my brief but deep experience with Marty. He’s gone from our world too soon. Broadway is less talented,” she said in a statement.

He is survived by six brothers and one sister, nine nieces and nephews, and a godson.



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