Joan Bridge

Joan Bridge
Born(1909-03-13)13 March 1909
Derbyshire, England
Died8 December 2009(2009-12-08) (aged 100)
Totteridge, London, England
OccupationsCostume designer
Technicolor consultant
Years active1938–1980

Joan Alice Bridge (13 March 1909 – 8 December 2009)[1] was a British Technicolor consultant and costume designer. She was best known for her longstanding collaboration with fellow costume designer Elizabeth Haffenden on many notable film productions in the 1960s and 1970s. Her accolades include an Academy Award and a BAFTA Award.

Early years

Born on 13 March 1909 at Ripley, Derbyshire, Joan Bridge was the daughter of Harry Newton Bridge, a General Secretary in a Cooperative Society, and Alice Bridge.

Joan Bridge studied art at Birmingham University but was urged by her father to take a teacher training qualification, claiming she would never be able to make a living out of art.[1]

Career

Colour consultant

In 1939, Joan Bridge was a colour adviser on the only feature film to be made in Dufaycolor, Sons of the Sea. During World War Two, Natalie Kalmus, Technicolor’s head of colour control was absent from Great Britain and Joan Bridge was the colour adviser on British wartime Technicolor productions. Natalie Kalmus returned in November 1945.[2] Notwithstanding, Kalmus enjoys a credit on these wartime films as part of her contract with Technicolor.[3] The two women shared British Technicolor production credits until 1949 after which Joan Bride had sole credit.[4] Film historian Sarah Street has commented on the different experiences of the two women: Bridge's work was admired by cinematographers such as Oswald Morris who had not "accorded Kalmus the same courtesy", in fact she was met with hostility; it is likely that Bridge's personality and nationality helped to avoid the criticism experienced by her colleague in British studios. Street concludes "there is no doubt that the combination of Kalmus and Bridge assisted Technicolor in Britain, a record that has won begrudging recognition over the years".[5]

Bridge's role drew her into a large number of productions, and she worked on up to six films per year in the late 1940s. Cecil Beaton, who worked with Joan Bridge on An Ideal Husband (1947), somewhat dismissively described her as "a color expert, run[ning] about with odd microscopic pieces of material and a lot of shop talk". Nevertheless, the costume designer did change a yellow dress planned for a pink boudoir scene when Bridge questioned the harmonisation of colours.[6]

Frequent collaborators in this period were directors Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, which whom Bridge worked six times: The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943-uncredited),[2] A Matter of Life and Death (1946), Black Narcissus (1947), The Red Shoes (1948), Gone to Earth (1950) and The Tales of Hoffman (1951).

Joan Bridge's colour direction or colour consultant credits in the 1950s include such acclaimed films as Moulin Rouge (1952), The Ladykillers (1955), and Invitation to the Dance (1956).[7] Altogether, she is credited in over 100 three-strip Technicolor movies, including the last to be filmed using this technique: The Feminine Touch (1956). She is credited as a colour consultant in a handful of films in the late 1950s including Richard III (1955) and Ben Hur (1959). In the latter, she collaborated with the costume designer Elizabeth Haffenden.

Costume designer

Joan Bridge had first met Elizabeth Haffenden while working at Gainsborough Studios in the 1940s.[8] They had a successful partnership in costume design throughout the 1960s and 70s. Between 1958 and her retirement, Bridge is credited with creating the costumes for more than 20 different productions.[7][9]

Interviewed for The Scotsman during the production of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie in 1968, Bridge explained the importance of colour in costume work, stating that the camera did lie, and that the hue of clothes changed once seen on films.[10] She described the "wonderful greyness" of the city's "grey buildings under grey skies" had been used in the checked tweeds of Miss Brodie's cape and the girls' school uniforms.[10]

Bridge and Haffenden's first formal collaboration was Ben Hur (1959), although Bridge was not awarded a co-designer credit for the film's Oscar-winning designs.[11][10] Bridge was credited on following collaborations, and the pair received a BAFTA nomination for colour costume design for The Amorous Adventures of Moll Flanders (1965), for their research-based costumes described as "fabulous and eye-catching" by critics.[11]

Haffenden and Bridge were frequent collaborators with director Fred Zinnemann. They worked on five films for Zinnemann, across a range of periods and locations that required thoughtful costuming, including The Sundowners (1960), set in 1920s Australia, the Spanish-set Behold a Pale Horse (1964), Tudor drama A Man for All Seasons (1966) and the recent history of Day of the Jackal (1973). Interviewed during production of Behold a Pale Horse, Bridge said that the secret of dressing male stars was to make them appear as "un-actorish as possible", and used the example of Gregory Peck's tailor-made clothes for the film being distressed and broken down to appear at least 15 years old.[12] Bridge and Haffenden explained their joint work as "developing the characters by subtle ways, with the clothes they wear... it's not just a case of finding pretty outfits for everyone".[10]

On more theatrical projects, Bridge and Haffenden were recognised for their bright colours and inventive wit. While creating the costumes for Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968) in London, Bridge and Haffenden used hundreds of faux-military medals popular in teenage fashion of the time to emulate the pompous regalia of the fictional state of Vulgaria.[13]

On her retirement from the film industry in 1980, Bridge moved to Totteridge and became a member of South Herts Golf Club where she was an active player into her nineties.[7]

Selected filmography

Year Title Director Notes
1964 Behold a Pale Horse Fred Zinnemann with Elizabeth Haffenden
1965 The Amorous Adventures of Moll Flanders Terence Young
The Liquidator Jack Cardiff
1966 A Man for All Seasons Fred Zinnemann
1967 Half a Sixpence George Sidney
1968 Chitty Chitty Bang Bang Ken Hughes
1969 The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie Ronald Neame
1971 Fiddler on the Roof Norman Jewison
1972 Pope Joan Michael Anderson
1973 The Day of the Jackal Fred Zinnemann
The Homecoming Peter Hall
1974 Luther Guy Green
1975 Conduct Unbecoming Michael Anderson
1977 Julia Fred Zinnemann Wardrobe designer
1979 Hanover Street Peter Hyams

Awards and nominations

Award Year Category Work Result Ref.
Academy Awards 1967 Best Costume Design – Color A Man for All Seasons Won [14]
British Academy Film Awards 1966 Best British Costume Design – Colour The Amorous Adventures of Moll Flanders Nominated [15]
1968 A Man for All Seasons Won [16]
Half a Sixpence Nominated
1979 Best Costume Design Julia Nominated [17]

References

  1. ^ a b Bradford, Kevin (15 December 2009). "Funeral of colourful Oscar winner from Totteridge held in Golders Green". The Times.
  2. ^ a b "Colour Directors". Kinematograph Weekly. 29 November 1945. p. 39.
  3. ^ Harmetz, Aljean (2013). The Making of The Wizard of Oz. Chicago: Chicago Review Press. ISBN 978-1-61374-832-9.
  4. ^ "Natalie Kalmus was a trailblazing woman who headed the color consultancy department". Technicolor Group. Retrieved 23 August 2025.
  5. ^ Street, Sarah (2015). "Cinema of Women: The Work of a Feminist Distributor". In Gledhill, Christina; Knight, Julia (eds.). Doing women's film history: reframing cinemas, past and future. Women and film history international. University of Illinois Press. pp. 213–14. ISBN 978-0-252-03968-3.
  6. ^ Beaton, Cecil (1972). Cecil Beaton, memoirs of the 40's. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co. p. 159. ISBN 978-0-07-004225-4.
  7. ^ a b c Bradford, Kevin (15 December 2009). "Funeral of colourful Oscar winner from Totteridge held in Golders Green". Times Series. Retrieved 19 February 2021.
  8. ^ Cook, Pam (1996). Fashioning the nation: costume and identity in British cinema. London: British Film Institute. ISBN 978-0-85170-469-2.
  9. ^ Lameris, Bregt (6 March 2025). Feeling Colour: Chromatic Embodiment in Film Culture, 1950s–1960s. Open Book Publishers. doi:10.11647/obp.0380. ISBN 978-1-80511-170-2.
  10. ^ a b c d Smith, Jean (27 July 1968). "Consulting the Costume Experts". The Scotsman. p. 22.
  11. ^ a b "Creative". Eastbourne Herald. 11 September 1965. p. 18.
  12. ^ "Star Dressing". Torbay Express and South Devon Echo. 7 September 1964. p. 4.
  13. ^ "Gold Medals". Eastbourne Gazette. 6 November 1968. p. 7.
  14. ^ "39th Academy Awards". Oscars.org. 4 October 2014. Retrieved 4 February 2023.
  15. ^ "19th BAFTA Film Awards". British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA). Retrieved 4 February 2023.
  16. ^ "21st BAFTA Film Awards". British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA). Retrieved 4 February 2023.
  17. ^ "32nd British Academy Film Awards". British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA). Retrieved 15 August 2023.

Joan Bridge at IMDb

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