Anthony Powell

Anthony Powell (2 June 1935 – 16 April 2021) was an English costume designer for film and stage. He won three Academy Awards, for Travels with My Aunt (1972), Death on the Nile (1978) and Tess (1979). Biography Powell was born in Chorlton-cum-Hardy in June 1935, and is a cousin of fellow costume designer Sandy Powell. Raised in Yorkshire and Dublin, Powell began his professional career as a teenager touring with his handmade marionettes. While serving as a wireless operator in the military, he mistakenly led the British Army of the Occupation in Germany into the Russian zone. After graduating from the Central School of Art and Design in London, he was apprenticed as an assistant to designers including Oliver Messel and Cecil Beaton. Simultaneously, Powell served as a lecturer at his alma mater. His costume designs for John Gielgud's production of The School for Scandal (1963) earned him a Tony Award, and he received a second nomination for his scenic design. He was consulted as a designer for men's sportswear as well as worked as a design consultant for hotels and restaurants. He assisted in the restoration and renovation of Sutton Place, Guildford during the 1960s and 1970s. Powell made his first Hollywood connection with director Irving Lerner who chose him to design the costumes for The Royal Hunt of the Sun (1969), which required styling both the Spanish conquistadors as well as the Native Americans. His first Oscar came for his outlandish designs for Maggie Smith's Augusta in George Cukor's Travels with My Aunt (1972). Powell returned to Broadway as set designer for a revival of Noël Coward's Private Lives and Peter Shaffer's Lettice and Lovage, both starring Maggie Smith. The academy honored him with Oscars for his glamorous 1930s designs for Death on the Nile (1978), and his 19th-century attire for Tess (1979). The latter began a long-term collaboration with director Roman Polanski that included the lavish Pirates (1986), and the contemporary Frantic (1988). Additionally, Powell created the costumes and sets for the French stage production of Amadeus, in which Polanski starred as well as directed.