Edith Head was born Edith Claire Posener in San Bernardino, California. At a young age she adopted her stepfather's surname and was known as Edith Spare until she married Charles Head. She retained Head's surname even after her 1940 marriage to art director Wiard Ihnen.
Edith graduated from Los Angeles High School in 1917 and went on to earn a B.A. degree from University of California at Berkeley and an M.A. degree in romantic language from Stanford University. After college, she taught Spanish at the Bishop School in La Jolla, California, then French at the Hollywood School for Girls. Coursework at the Otis Art Institute and Chouinard Art School led to a job as a sketch artist for Paramount in 1923.
Her first film as solo designer was She Done Him Wrong (Paramount, 1933). By 1938 she was head designer at Paramount. When her Paramount contract expired in 1967, Head became chief costume designer at Universal. Bette Davis, Marlene Dietrich, Audrey Hepburn, Grace Kelly, Merle Oberon, Elizabeth Taylor, and Natalie Wood are among the stars for whom she designed costumes. Head appeared as herself in Lucy Gallant (1955) and The Oscar (1966), and was a frequent guest on Art Linkletter's CBS television show House Party.
She authored two books, The Dress Doctor and How to Dress for Success. An unfinished autobiography was completed by Paddy Calistro and published posthumously as Edith Head's Hollywood. Over the course of her career, Head was involved with more than 750 productions. Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid (1982) was her last.
She employed her formidable talent and versatility designing everything from westerns to monster movies, intimate romances to Biblical spectacles. By 1976, Head had received a remarkable eight Academy Awards and a total of thirty-three Academy Award nominations.
