‘Chinatown’, ‘Shampoo’ Costume Designer Was 84

Anthea Sylbert, an Oscar-nominated costume designer who worked on some of the landmark films of the late 1960s and 1970s, including ‘Rosemary’s Baby’, ‘Carnal Knowledge’, ‘Chinatown’, ‘Shampoo’, ‘Julia’ and ‘King Kong,” and a producer later in her career on a number of films starring Goldie Hawn, has died. She was 84.

Her death was confirmed by Robert Romanus, who directed a documentary about her life.

Sylbert also served as an executive at United Artists and Warner Bros., at a time when there were few women in Hollywood’s C-suites. She also worked repeatedly with director Mike Nichols, both on screen and on stage, and was nominated for an Oscar for her costumes in historical films “Chinatown” (1974) and “Julia” (1977).

GlamAmor, a website dedicated to the history of fashion in film, said in a 2012 review of Sylbert’s work on ‘Chinatown’: ‘Sylbert created clothes for Faye Dunaway that fit within the warm palette of the film, while also referencing noir predecessors such as ‘Double Indemnity’ and ‘Mildred Pierce.’ She effectively brings to life both the highs and lows of the 1930s style through the costumes of each character in the film.

Nicholson loved his “Chinatown” wardrobe so much that he made a special effort to preserve it.

Sylbert was the costume designer for 21 films, including period pieces “Carnal Knowledge,” starring Nicholson and Art Garfunkel; “Chinatown”; Mike Nichols’ “The Fortune,” starring Warren Beatty and Nicholson; “The Last Tycoon,” starring Robert De Niro; “Julia,” starring Jane Fonda and Vanessa Redgrave; Norman Jewison’s ‘FIST’, starring Sylvester Stallone. Other films included Elaine May’s ‘The Heartbreak Kid’ and ‘A New Leaf’, as well as ‘The Day of the Dolphin’, directed by Nichols.

In 1977, Sylbert joined Warner Bros. as VP of special projects; a year later, she was named vice president of production at the studio. In 1980, she was named VP of production at United Artists. In 1982 she became an independent producer working with Goldie Hawn. (The two women may have met on the set of “Shampoo,” in which Hawn co-starred with Warren Beatty and Sylbert provided costumes.) Together they produced the Hawn vehicles “Protocol” (1984), “Wildcats” ( 1986) , “Overboard” (1987) and “Criss Cross” (1992) and Steve Martin’s lead role in “My Blue Heaven” (1990); Something to Talk About by Lasse Hallstrom, starring Julia Roberts and Dennis Quaid; and 1997 TNT telepic “Hope,” directed by Hawn.

As executive producer of the 1995 HBO biopic “Truman,” starring Gary Sinise, she shared an Emmy for outstanding television film.

With husband Richard Romanus, Sylbert wrote two Lifetime telepics, 1998’s ‘Giving Up the Ghost’ and 1999’s ‘If You Believe’, the latter of which she also produced.

Anthea Sylbert was born in New York City on October 6, 1939. She was educated at Barnard College and the Parsons School of Design in New York.

She made her big screen debut as a costume designer in Arthur Hiller’s contemporary comedy ‘The Tiger Makes Out’, starring Eli Wallach and Anne Jackson. She worked with then-husband Paul Sylbert, the production designer for that 1967 film; about the 1971 comedy road movie ‘The Steagle’, which he wrote and directed; and on 1972’s ‘Bad Company’, a western directed by Robert Benton. But she actually had a productive working relationship with production designer Richard Sylbert, Paul’s twin brother, with whom she worked on some eight films, starting with “Rosemary’s Baby” and “Chinatown.”

Richard Sylbert died in 2002.

Anthea Sylbert was also a stage costume designer, including two Broadway productions for director Nichols: Neil Simon’s ‘The Prisoner of Second Avenue’, starring Peter Falk and Lee Grant, from 1971, and Tom Stoppard’s ‘The Real Thing’, starring starring Glenn Close and Jeremy Irons received a Tony nomination for the latter in 1984. She also designed costumes for a New York production of the musical ‘The Fantasticks’.

Sylbert was interviewed for the 2008 documentary ‘Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired’. She won a career achievement award for film at the Costume Designers Guild Award in 2005.

She moved to Greece later in life. Her second husband, actor Richard Romanus, whom she married in 1985, died in December 2023.