Albert Wolsky, a two-time Academy Award winning and Tony nominated costume designer whose many high-profile credits include his Oscar-taking work on All That Jazz (1979) and Bugsy (1991), died Saturday, May 23, at his home in Hollywood. He was 95.
His death was announced by friends and colleagues on social media and confirmed by Deadline.
Born in Paris, France, on November 24, 1930, Wolsky had moved to the United States and attended City College of New York when, at age 30, he switched careers from the travel industry to pursue costume design. An early entry level position for the legendary costumer Helene Pons came during the original Broadway production of Camelot.
During those early years Wolsky was credited as an assistant to such costumer designers as Ann Roth (A Case of Libel, 1963), Irene Sharaff (Jennie, 1963) and Patricia Zipprodt (Fiddler on the Roof, 1964). He reteamed with Roth again for 1965’s The Odd Couple, and the same year became costumer
Within six years, Wolsky was designing costumes under his own name for Broadway productions, including Generation (1965) and Pousse-Café (1966). Another significant solo credit came in 1972 when Wolsky designed the costumes for the original The Sunshine Boys by Neil Simon. Subsequent Broadway productions included, among others, The Country Girl, a 2008 production starring Frances McDormand, Morgan Freeman and Peter Gallagher, and, in 2012, The Heiress, his Tony-nominated final Broadway production that starred Jessica Chastain, Dan Stevens and David Strathairn.
Wolsky’s screen work began shortly after his Broadway debut, with credits including a 1968 TV-movie version of Of Mice and Men, and, that same year, the feature film The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter.
Over the subsequent decades, he would design the costumes for numerous major motion pictures, including, among many others, Up the Sandbox, Harry and Tonto, Lenny, The Turning Point, An Unmarried Woman, Grease, Woody Allen’s Manhattan, The Jazz Singer, Sophie’s Choice, Star 80, Moscow on the Hudson, The Falcon and the Snowman, Down and Out in Beverly Hills, Crimes of the Heart, Scenes from a Mall, Toys, Fatal Instinct, Striptease, You’ve Got Mail, Runaway Bride, Road To Perdition, Maid in Manhattan, Jarhead, Revolutionary Road, Birdman and Ad Astra.
Wolsky won Oscars for his work on All That Jazz in 1979 and Bugsy in 1991. He served four terms on the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science’s board of governors, and in 2015 received The Costume Designer’s Guild Award for Excellence in Contemporary Film.
