alexanderstadlercollection

"Though Tony Curtis' wardrobe in The Boston Strangler consisted almost entirely of work clothes, he insisted that everything be custom tailored. The assignment fell to costume designer William Travilla, a high fashion couturier under his professional name, Travilla, and the designer of Errol Flynn's costumes in some of his swashbuckling and codpiece epics. 'I'm not knocking Tony, but he is a pain in the neck to work with,' Travilla said one day. 'He's such a perfectionist. But I guess it's a very serious picture and the clothes couldn't be handled by just buying a green zipper jacket. We wanted to get as slender a look as possible, so the pants were dropped to the hipbone and made with fewer pockets. Then the work shirts were made to measure so there wouldn't be a lot of extra bulk to push down into the pants. Then everything was put into the washing machine and mangled so that they'd have character. Oddly enough, the changes we made in the clothes aren't noticeable. The character comes out moody and nasty and certainly doesn't look custom made. The clothes create a more sensuous approach, and after all, the Strangler had to have sex appeal to get into all of those women's apartments.'"

-from The Studio, by John Gregory Dunne