Bob Mackie has spent the last 60+ years crafting the visual identity for some of the greatest entertainers who ever lived: Cher, Marilyn Monroe, Judy Garland, Whitney Houston, Carol Burnette, Elton John, and many others.
He created the famous curtain dress that Carol Burnett wore in The Carol Burnett Show’s spoof of Gone With the Wind.
He designed the nude dress that Marilyn Monroe infamously wore while singing “Happy Birthday, Mr. President” to JFK.
And he and Cher have been collaborating on costumes since she was 19. He worked with her on The Sonny and Cher Show, multiple tours and music videos, and still designs for her today.
We spoke in 2025 when his new documentary Bob Mackie: Naked Illusion first came out. Since then, he made headlines once again when Taylor Swift wore an ensemble designed by Mackie in promotional photos for her album, The Life of a Showgirl.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
Jeffrey Masters: You’ve dressed some of the most iconic and famous entertainers in history—
Bob Mackie: I have, but it just kind of happened. I don’t know, I mean, I didn’t work for years to get to that point.
JM: Going back, what would you say your goal was when you were starting out?
BM: Starting out for me was so weird. I was this strange child who didn’t like to play sports, and I didn’t like to do anything except draw pictures. And then once I went to a few movies, when I was five and six and seven, I liked it, especially if they were Technicolor and they danced and sang, and it was Carmen Miranda with fruit all over her head and everything. It’s just one of those things. And people would give me catcher’s mitts and things for Christmas, and I’d go, “Now, what am I gonna do with this?”
JM: And so your goal was to be a costume designer?
BM: Well, it was to be involved in…there were so many movies back in the early ’40s, when I was a child because I was born in ’39. And I always think that I’m part of that Wizard of Oz, I’m Bad, in Gone with the Wind, all the good things happened in 1939, you know? Including my birth.
But once I was in art school and doing it and everything. Fortunately I was the best one in the class, so it just worked. We had a Capezio shoe award, which I always thought was such a funny thing to do, and I won that one, and then I won this one. And I was only there on a scholarship for two years, and I thought, “You know what, I’ve won all the awards, I have to go work now.”
JM: So you left school?
BM: I quit school. They were mad at me. And then I became their hero a couple years later, when I was getting printed in the paper or whatever. But it was just kind of a funny time in my life, because I didn’t expect anything. I kept wondering, “Is anyone gonna ever hire me? Are they gonna like me? Are they gonna like what I do?” And I was just lucky, I got the right people.
JM: This was the early 1960s when you were starting out, right?
BM: Early, like ’61.
JM: In 1960 you married Lulu Porter, your ex-wife.
BM: ’59, really, yeah.
JM: How aware were you of your sexuality? How were you thinking about it?
BM: I loved and adored her, and we were best, best friends. And I was trying very hard to be what everybody wanted you to be, what I liked to expect you to be and wanted to be. And when I was in high school there were lots of boys that were gay. Let me tell you, but nobody ever talked about it or was ever, nowadays it’s a whole other world.
JM: So it was obvious when you were in high school, but it just wasn’t spoken about?
BM: Not spoken at all. And some of my best friends, I thought later on about it, I thought, “Well, if it’d been a different time we would’ve been, you know, paying the rent together or something.” But it wasn’t working that way. And we had a child, and I loved him, and we had a lovely little life. But there’s always that little thing that’s just itching at you, because it’s not who you really are, completely.
JM: When did you start to put a name to that?
BM: Well, I would hear about it, and I’d hear all these boys at school, art school, and they’re just different. I would watch them and I’d say, “Well, oh, that one’s handsome…look at that one.” It’s funny, you’re still the same person, but it’s just different, you know? But you have to be honest with yourself, you can’t go around pretending. And then, while I was working in the studios, I’d see these directors/producers all had boyfriends, but they had wives and children at home. I thought, “Oh, I’d rather be honest and not try to be something else.”
JM: So it was not a secret for you?
BM: No, but it was careful. You don’t need to go around, “Look at me, look at me, look what I can do,” and all that.
JM: During this time, you could probably have still been fired for being publicly gay.
BM: You probably could, but you see, in television and films and all of that, all the choreographers, the conductors, the set designers, the costume designers—I mean, sometimes the costume designers were ladies, but they might be gay too, you know? It was one of those things, and that never occurred to people working on those shows and those projects. It wasn’t that they cared if you were or you weren’t, they just liked the work.
JM: As you started to build a name for yourself, did you feel like you couldn’t discuss being gay when you were being interviewed?
BM: No, I never really discussed it, but I didn’t pretend not to be. Because basically, in certain areas, almost everybody was, you know?
JM: It’s interesting, this bubble where people were gay, and it wasn’t hidden, but it also wasn’t talked about. How much awareness did you have in the ’60s and ’70s of these early gay moments, like Stonewall or the Black Cat protest in LA?
BM: I don’t know what the Black Cat protest was.
JM: Oh, it was 1967—
BM: I was already deep into work by that time, working in the business, so that wouldn’t have affected me one way or another. I would just be interested to read about it.
JM: So that didn’t come across your radar at all. That’s fascinating.
BM: No, it didn’t, but I was working. By the time I was 22, I was going to work every day, working on shows and stuff.
JM: Looking at your work more broadly, when I’ve seen people wear your dresses, like Miley Cyrus wore your dress when she sang “Flowers” at the most recent Grammys.
BM: I never got so much press over a dress from a show like that one. The next day I was never off the phone, and everybody, everywhere I’d go, people would know about it. They watched that show, or she really impressed them somehow.
JM: For me, watching that, I thought, “Is that a Bob Mackie?”
BM: Thank you. That was from a fashion show that I had done. I did a whole fashion show based on Broadway shows.
JM: But I guess what I’m wondering is, what was it that I’m seeing that makes me think that’s a Bob Mackie? How would you describe it?
BM: I don’t know, maybe it’s because it was flashy, it moved. I never did, as a costume designer, I never did just a nice little dress, you know.
JM: It’s vibrant, it can move, it’s the color.
BM: And you also have to spend time looking at the performer, and how they move, how they sing, how they tell a joke or tell a story or give a line. A lot of people just think, “Well, I’ll just make this beautiful dress, it doesn’t matter if it looks good on her.”
JM: I mean, your famous quote is that you design for the woman who is not afraid to be noticed.
BM: Oh, well, that’s something somebody wrote.
JM: Somebody wrote that? Oh, so it’s not your quote.
BM: No, no, well, no, it is kind of, in a way, because it really is, it is kind of a quote, because it is true. A lot of the, those, if you’re a performer, and when you walk on stage, you want that audience to take a deep breath and go, “Oh.” You can hear it.
JM: I think too, when it’s something designed to be noticed or to command your attention, I usually think of that as gimmicky or flashy, overly trendy. But yours are timeless.
BM: I try. I never did anything that was truly what I thought was trendy. I mean, you had to, sometimes, because it was such a strong movement at that moment, like the year hot pants came on the scene and you go, “Oh, okay.” [laughs]
JM: You regret that.
BM: Right. But then I had people, I had amazing people, like Juliet Prowse, who’s gone now, but had the most beautiful body, danced like crazy, had long, long legs, and beautiful…and she just looked, you wouldn’t put anything else on her that particular year.
JM: I guess what I’m wondering is, what is that timeless quality? What do you attribute that to? Is that because you’re designing for the specific body?
BM: Yeah, I think so. Body and the talent. I mean, you can’t put that on anybody and have them walk out, and they think, “Well, what are they dressed up for, are they a clown?” It’s a whole other world.
I worked on The Judy Garland Show for one season, because it was only one season. And I was working for a designer who had somewhat of a reputation, he was the designer on The Judy Garland Show, and I was the assistant designer. So I was dressing Liza Minnelli, and the guest stars, and the dancing kids, and whatever. And we had Barbra on singing with Judy, with Ethel Merman. I mean, I was just like in hog heaven. I thought, “How often are you gonna see that in your life?” Standing there in the studio, behind the audience area, and I thought, “This is fabulous, look where I am.” It was just crazy.
JM: Who was the biggest bitch? Just tell me their initials.
BM: There are very few. I really had no trouble. They understood. I would know what they had done in their life, and what numbers they had done, what songs they’d sung, what musicals they had been in, or whatever it was that made them think that I could do it for them.
JM: Because having you on their side only helps them.
BM: It did, in the long run. But every now and then you’d get somebody who just, “I don’t know if this is right, I don’t.” And then she’d say, “Harry, do you like this outfit?” That’d be her manager or her agent or whoever. And you go, “Oh, God, how many…” But that hardly ever happened. T
here’s a few people that question everything, and they just don’t trust themselves, and they don’t trust anybody. And then they’re usually quite brilliant in their talents. One of my favorite ones, I remember a last fitting I was ever in, she said something and she says, “That’s supposed to be funny? Do you think that’s funny? I don’t know if it’s funny, I don’t know what’s funny anymore.” To me. And I went, “Honey, just do it, you are so popular, and people will listen to everything you say and sing.”
JM: Who was that?
BM: It was Miss B.S.
JM: Okay.
BM: But she was amazing. She was this amazing talent that just came out of Brooklyn, and out of New York, and everybody knew who she was here, but nobody knew anywhere else until she started doing the talk shows late at night. And then all of a sudden you go, “Who the hell is she? Listen to her sing, she’s amazing.” And I did things with her, but not everything, and she would move around to different people. She was always trying somebody else.
JM: Hmm.
BM: You know, she’s an interesting woman, and certainly talented, amazingly talented. And there were several like that I would see on late-night television, and I’d think, “Who is that?” I remember the first time I saw Bette Midler, I went, “Where’d she come from? She doesn’t look like a movie star.” And then I go, “Look at her, listen to her.” It was just one of those, it’s always amazing when these people creep up out of nowhere, or what you think is nowhere.
JM: Did you seek out Bette Midler? Because you eventually worked with her.
BM: No, I really didn’t. You know, they would hear of me. I didn’t go soliciting my talents to the crowd, but other people would mention it, or they’d see it. When Cher first came on the air, first couple of weeks, we were getting these calls from all these funny girls that wanted the same dress and the same this. And I said, “No, no, no, that’s for Cher. Let me meet you, and we’ll look at what’s good for you.” I never did anything that I didn’t think would be perfect for them, or for what they were doing in it, or the material and how good it was or not good.
JM: And you mentioned Cher, that’s one of the things that really helped you make a name for yourself, right? Working with her.
BM: It did, because people were, you couldn’t do what I did for Cher, or on her, on just everybody, everybody couldn’t pull it off. But that girl was like a goddess visually, and she didn’t know any better, she was a young girl, she was like 19 when I first met her, and adorable and young, but she’d do all these sort of goth looks with Sonny and they were all like cave people and whatever. And I just looked at her going, “Uhh,” until I met her, and I went, “Oh, this is a whole other world here.”
JM: When did your name become a noun? “I want a Bob Mackie”?
BM: Probably once, well…I was doing the Carol show, and that was like a gift from God, to do that, because I love doing comedy and creating a character for Carol, for other guest stars and stuff. And people would ask her, “Who does your gowns?” She’d come out in a real dress in the beginning, a real gown, not a character costume. I mean, some people might think it was a character costume, but they weren’t.
And she’d talk to the audience, and they would ask her who does her dresses. And then there were times, several times, that she would pull me out, “Come out, Bob.” But people got to know me. People still say, “Oh, I used to see you come out on The Carol Burnett Show.” You know how many years ago that was, like 50, 60 years ago. It was just crazy, but they’re still talking about that.
JM: We can’t talk about Carol Burnett without talking about the dress.
BM: Which one, the curtain rod dress? Well, that’s the one everybody still, to this day, mentions. They’ll say, “Do you know the costume that I thought was really funny?” And I’ll say, “No, tell me.” And that will be it.
JM: Are you surprised that almost 50 years later we’re still talking about it?
BM: I don’t know. It was just one of those, everybody in our world had seen Gone with the Wind, and that gag was already funny just when she walked out, and the dress was the most beautifully made couture 1860s costume, from the drape, the dusty old drapes. And they just thought I would do the same thing, the writers just wrote it, they didn’t know what else to do. And it wasn’t until practically the night before we taped, I said, “You know, Carol, I’m having trouble with this, because the old trick isn’t funny anymore, we know it too well, and I’m not sure what can be funny here because if you get too crazy and too funny, it’s not funny.”
So I became this big expert on getting a laugh visually, and I didn’t start out that way, but it just made sense to me, that’s what we were there for. And she called, she came over and looked at it at our fitting area, where we fit all the costumes, and she started getting hysterical and thought it was really funny, and she said, “This is gonna go on forever.” And then she called Harvey, she said, “You’ve gotta see this, because you’re gonna break up in the middle of the scene if you don’t.” And a lot of people wouldn’t think it was so funny to see it on a dress form somewhere, but the minute she walked down the staircase, holding her head up high, like she looked like Marlene Dietrich or something, the audience started giggling, and then they got louder and louder, and then they did their lines together. “Oh, you look gorgeous, darling, and that dress is magnificent.” And Carol is rolling her eyes around. Did you see it?
JM: Of course.
BM: You can’t help but laugh. But the audience, again, these are people that come to television tapings in those days, most of them are semi-middle-age or whatever, they just love the show and they love coming to see it at CBS. But it was amazing.
JM: You mentioned working as the assistant costume designer on The Judy Garland Show. Is that where you met your partner, Ray?
BM: No, we met earlier. I’d met him at a guild meeting for costume designers, and he was coming on, obviously. You know, it was good. And he said, “You know, my apartment’s just around the corner.” It was right on Sunset Boulevard, and we were in this place, and I said, “No, no, I’ve gotta go and finish the meeting, and I got a call at Paramount.” This was the night before Thanksgiving, and he says, “You wanna go out to dinner?” And I said, “Yeah, I got nothing to do tonight, this would be fun.”
And so we went to a place right on La Cienega, and walked into this Italian restaurant that was like a family-owned restaurant right on the street, and there was Fred Astaire sitting there with Hermes Pan, and all these different people from the industry. They all went there to eat dinner. And we sat and talked, and all of a sudden I said, “This is the first time I’ve been to dinner with anyone where I really discussed what we all do for a living, and what we like, what we don’t like, what we approve of, what we don’t.” And we started going out to dinner almost every night, just to have that kind of relationship.
JM: And was it flirty right away?
BM: A little bit, but not ridiculous, just enjoyed the companionship with somebody that has the same interests as you have at that point in time. He was 10 years older than me.
JM: When did it change to a relationship?
BM: Well, I don’t know, it just did. How does anything change? But then we would go to things together, we’d go to the movies or something we wanted to see, you know, it was somebody to go with. I didn’t have, and…I think I’d we’d already started having a kind of a divorce talk and everything, because my wife was a performer, and she was coming to New York to audition for things and back and forth and whatever. And it was fine, we still are very close, and we have grandchildren and all of that.
JM: And so you’re building this relationship with Ray, and then you also start working together?
BM: Well, we hadn’t really worked that much. I knew what he did, and I’d go to tapings that he was, he had shows like the Roy and Dale variety show, with Roy Rogers and Dale Evans. And I would say, “How’d you get that show?” He says, “They’re such nice people, and he’s so nice, and she’s lovely.” And I said, “Oh, fine.” And then she was doing The Dinah Shore Show also.
JM: With Ray, he was extremely successful.
BM: He was the hot young designer at NBC at that point. But I just felt he always had me do his sketches. And I said, “Nah, you don’t want to do this, this looks like 10 years ago, this is like the 1950s. Let’s do something different on Judy.” He was doing these sort of ingenue dresses on Judy Garland at 42 years old.
JM: Would he give you credit when you gave those suggestions?
BM: Well, he liked it, and he liked working with me, and I would draw it and he’d say, “Oh, yeah, that looks good.” And he would listen to me. Usually when you hire somebody at that point in their career, you go, “Oh, they don’t really get it.” But I got it pretty well, because I trained myself from the time I was a little kid, watching stuff.
JM: I mean, I was wondering, he, as you said, was this hotshot designer—
BM: But he wasn’t the hotshot. I mean, he was a TV designer who did stuff, he got the jobs, and people liked him ’cause he was foreign and kind of—
JM: Your career, in many ways, eclipsed his. Was he supportive of that?
BM: We did a lot of things together, and he had good ideas. But sometimes I would just say, “No, that looks like last year, let’s do something that’s…” Or look at Judy when she was in A Star Is Born, and she just had that pink shirt on over her brown tights, and I said, “That’s what works on her,” because it’s kind of boy clothes, girl clothes, but it somehow works for her, with her little short haircut and everything. And I said, “You have to look at the person that’s wearing it.” And he didn’t really understand that exactly, but yet he had good jobs, he got good jobs. And it was fine.
JM: I think you were together for almost 50 years, was it?
BM: One month under 50. And then he died, but he wasn’t that well, he smoked and he drank a little and whatever.
JM: Yeah.
BM: He just didn’t take care of himself well enough.
JM: After nearly 50 years, what has it been like to adjust to life without him?
BM: Well, you just do. And there were times when he would do stuff and I would just tell him, I said, “That looks like shit, don’t do that.” And then he’d show me something, and I’d say, “Oh, that looks good, now we’re cooking.” I was the terrible, snotty young boy.
JM: What did you learn from him, and not as a designer, but as a career, in doing this?
BM: I don’t know, I just went forward with him, and he never fought me on it at all. I think probably in the beginning he was probably a little nervous.
But yet, I all of a sudden had fans, like on The Judy Garland Show. I met people on that show that I would work with, ’cause I was the youngest one on the set, I would work with for the next 20 years in different shows and different projects and things. They just happened to be there. So it’s funny how you become known.
JM: I mean, it was very funny watching your documentary, because almost every star talks about how young you looked at the time. And still do, frankly.
BM: I know, it’s silly. I was watching it the other night, we were in Toronto, and I said, “God, take a look at me now, I don’t look like I’m 12.” But I did look that way. And some of the young actresses or the young performers would get this funny little crush on me.
JM: I think we don’t take young people seriously, but was it an asset for you in your career?
BM: Oh, I think it helped. You hear Carol talk about it, I came in and I was cute and sweet and polite and whatever, and they hired me the next day. I mean, who gets hired the… does an interview and gets hired the very next day?
JM: You said that everyone mentions the curtain dress as their favorite, but I wonder, is there a most memorable dress for you?
BM: No, well, it isn’t like I do one dress a year. I was doing Carol Burnett, and then after she’d been on for quite a while, Sonny and Cher came right next door, you had to go through the men’s room to get through to their stage, and everything was closed off. And so I was at CBS constantly. I was doing the Mitzi Gaynor specials, which are these huge specials with guest stars, and she was funny and wonderful, my first client, really.
The fun one was when Cher was on the cover of Time magazine in a dress, nobody had ever appeared on Time magazine in a see-through dress.
JM: Yeah, describe it for everyone.
BM: Well, it was just kind of a sheer thing, and there were beads and diamonds and things coming up in important places, so you’re not looking at somebody just through the shower door, it wasn’t like that. And she wanted to wear, she had worn that dress for a spread in Vogue, on fashion in the 20th century, starting with the ’20s. And then, this was in December, by February Time magazine was coming out, and she was this big hit, and they were gonna put her on the cover, and she was gonna wear something else, just as good, but not as crazy as that dress. And then people were like, “Oh, it’s shocking, it’s horrible, it’s not fashion.” And she will pick out the dress that she wants to wear, it’s never anything ordinary.
JM: With Cher, with Carol Burnett, these are, if I can say it, these are gonna be the dresses that are named in your obituary, right?
BM: They probably have written that obituary a few times already, and then, “Oh well, he got through that one, whatever.”
JM: Beyond those dresses, do you think about your legacy, and what that will look like?
BM: I don’t think about stuff like that. I think about the work, and what it’s being done for. You just can’t do that.
JM: And are you officially retired now?
BM: No, not really. After we did the Cher show, I went to Las Vegas…
JM: This is the most recent, Cher on Broadway, you’re saying?
BM: The big one, from four years ago. Yeah. And I got a Tony and all that, and I thought, “You know, I’d just like to rest a little bit for the moment and then go back and do stuff.” But when you live in Palm Springs, you’re not doing a lot of theater and whatever in LA, because it’s two or three hours away. But it’s fine, I’m happy, and I do little projects and stuff that come up.
But at 80, 85, about to be 86, you’re not building a career at that point, you’re doing things that sound like they’d be fun to do.
Click here to listen to the full interview on the LGBTQ&A podcast.
LGBTQ&A features interviews with the most interesting lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer people in the world. Hosted and produced by Jeffrey Masters. @jeffmasters1
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