Tree, Dolly (1909–1992)

American costume designer. Name variations: Dorothy Tree. Born in 1909; died in 1992.

Principal stage credits:

Diamond Lil (1927); various Paramount Circuit Stage Shows (1929); Capitol Stage Shows (1929).

Principal film credits:

Just Imagine (1930); Annabelle's Affairs (1931); Bad Girl (1931); Wicked (1931); Stepping Sisters (1931); Business and Pleasure (1931); Almost Married (1932); Meet the Baron (1932); The Prizefighter and the Lady (1933); The Chief (1933); Lazy River (1934); Viva, Villa (1934); Laughing Boy (1934); Manhattan Melodrama (1934); The Thin Man (1934); Stamboul Quest (1934); Hide-Out (1934); Straight Is the Way (1934); Evelyn Prentice (1934); The Gay Bride (1934); A Wicked Woman (1934); David Copperfield (1934); The Night is Young (1934); Vanessa, Her Story (1934); West Point of the Air (1934); The Casino Murder Case (1934); Times Square Lady (1934); Age of Indiscretion (1935); One New York Night (1935); Public Hero No. 1 (1935); Escapade (1935); The Flame Within (1935); Mad Love (1935); Woman Wanted (1935); The Bishop Misbehaves (1935); Here Comes the Band (1935); It's in the Air (1935); A Night at the Opera (1935); Ah, Wilderness! (1935); A Tale of Two Cities (1935); Riffraff (1935); Three Live Ghosts (1935); Exclusive Story (1935); Whipsaw (1935); The Garden Murder Case (1935); The Voice of Bugle Ann (1935); Wife Versus Secretary (1935); Moonlight Murder (1935); Petticoat Fever (1935); The Robin Hood of Eldorado (1935); Three Godfathers (1935); Absolute Quiet (1936); Small Town Girl (1936); The Unguarded Hour (1936); Fury (1936); Three Wise Guys (1936); We Went to College (1936); The Devil-Doll (1936); Suzy (1936); Sworn Enemy (1936); His Brother's Wife (1936); Piccadilly Jim (1936); Libeled Lady (1936); Mad Holiday (1936); Sinner Takes All (1936); After the Thin Man (1936); Dangerous Number (1936); The Good Earth (1936); Espionage (1936); Personal Property (1936); Good Old Soak (1937); Night Must Fall (1937); Mama Steps Out (1937); Song of the City (1937); A Day at the Races (1937); Saratoga (1937); Live, Love and Learn (1937); My Dear Miss Aldrich (1937); Navy Blue and Gold (1937); Thoroughbreds Don't Cry (1937); Rosalie (1937); The Badman from Brimstone (1937); Man Proof (1937); Paradise for Three (1937); The First Hundred Years (1937); Of Human Hearts (1937); Big City (1937); Arsene Lupin Returns (1937); Four Girls in White (1938); The Girl Downstairs (1938); Stand Up and Fight (1938); Fast and Loose (1938); Let Freedom Ring (1938); Ice Follies of 1939 (1938); Test Pilot (1938); Hold That Kiss (1938); Yellow Jack (1938); Fast Company (1938); Lord Jeff (1938); Port of Seven Seas (1938); Woman against Woman (1938); The Chaser (1938); The Crowd Roars (1938); Rich Man, Poor Girl (1938); Too Hot to Handle (1938); Listen, Darling (1938); Spring Madness (1938); Young Tom Edison (1939); The Kid from Texas (1939); Society Lawyer (1939); Within the Law (1939); Bridal Suite (1939); Lucky Night (1939); Tell No Tales (1939); Maisie (1939); On Borrowed Time (1939); Six Thousand Enemies (1939); Stronger Than Desire (1939); Miracles For Sale (1939); These Glamour Girls (1939); They All Came Out (1939); Babes in Arms (1939); Blackmail (1939); Thunder Afloat (1939); Another Thin Man (1939); At the Circus (1939); Bad Little Angel (1939); Congo Maisie (1939); The Man from Dakota (1939); Forty Little Mothers (1939); Dancing Co-ed (1939); Twenty Mule Team (1940); Two Girls on Broadway (1940); Edison, The Man (1940); The Captain Is a Lady (1940); We Who Are Young (1940); Andy Hardy Meets Debutante (1940); I Love You Again (1940); Wyoming (1940); Dr. Kildare Goes Home (1940); Strike up the Band (1940); Gold Rush Maisie (1940); Hullabaloo (1940); Third Finger, Left Hand (1940); The Golden Fleecing (1940); Little Nellie Kelly (1940); Flight Command (1940); Go West (1940); The Penalty (1940); The Trial of Mary Dugan (1940); The Bad Man (1940); Sporting Blood (1940); Free and Easy (1941); Billy the Kid (1941); Wild Man of Borneo (1941); Two Gentlemen From West Point (1942); The Magnificent Dope (1942); The Loves of Edgar Allan Poe (1942); The Pied Piper (1942); Thunder Birds (1942); Tales of Manhattan (1942).

Dolly Tree's career began on Broadway in the 1920s, when she designed costumes and other aspects of Broadway musicals, revues, and plays. Most notably, she designed Mae West 's costumes for the original production of Diamond Lil, which was staged in New York. She was also a designer for the Capitol Stage and Paramount Circuit Shows in 1927. Two years later, she relocated to California and was signed by Winfield Sheehan as a "fashion creator" for Fox Studios. In 1932, she moved to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) Studios, where she designed costumes for hundreds of movies until 1942. Tree collaborated with many other leading lights of costume design, including Sophie Wachner, Alice O'Neill , Valles, Adrian, Irene , and Gwen Wakeling . Some of the more memorable movies in which her designs appeared were The Thin Man (1934) and Another Thin Man (1939), with William Powell and Myrna Loy ; the Marx Brothers' A Night at the Opera (1935), A Day at the Races (1937), and At the Circus (1939); the film versions of Eugene O'Neill's Ah, Wilderness! (1935), Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities (1935), and Pearl S. Buck 's The Good Earth (1936); Babes in Arms (1939), with Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland ; and the star-studded (Rita Hayworth, Ginger Rogers , Charles Boyer and Henry Fonda, among others) Tales of Manhattan (1942), in which the plot revolves around a dress tailcoat.

sources:

Leese, Elizabeth. Costume Design in the Movies. NY: Dover, 1991.

Gillian S. Holmes , freelance writer, Hayward, California