BEHIND THE STYLE How Bob Mackie’s Dazzling Designs Connected the Stars

Bob Mackie’s sequin-and-crystal creations became signature looks for the icons he dressed, and they went on to define over-the-top ’70s glitz. “All of this ‘super glamour’ is always a little tongue-in-cheek,” he says. “It’s meant to be on stage, to entertain the audience visually.” Turns out that while the audience was indeed being entertained, the performers were being inspired— by both the looks and each other. Now Mackie, 78, reveals the surprising links EC:HRYLNDN OS HR AR AGO/ET MGS() UNR A ERL/EFRS EOC:TN SAZ/B/ET IMAGES; ESPARZA/CBS/GETTY TONY BEYONCE: TERRELL/REDFERNS; GAI TURNER: (2); IMAGES LANGDON/GETTY HARRY CHER: ROSS, LANGDON; HARRY WELCH: between his wild creations and the fierce women who donned them. By Isabella Biedenharn

SECRETS FROM THE SET THE LOVE BOAT: LIFE ON THE (VERY) HIGH SEAS

Long before Lee “I WAS ON THE LOVE BOAT FROM 1978 THROUGH writer, and I had a little pile of coke on the Aronsohn found 1980, the second and third seasons. It was my ashtray. There were members of the cast and massive success as first writing job. We needed three separate other staffers doing a lot of cocaine. It’s no the co-creator of scripts for each episode. Those would be secret Lauren Tewes was doing it. [She is now CBS’ Two and a Half farmed out to freelancers, and then story edi- clean.] One of my fondest memories was how Men, he was an tors like me would stitch them together into an I actually got to go on one of the first cruises entry-level story hour-long episode. I’d literally cut pieces out of in Alaska. I sat on a glacier snorting cocaine editor on ABC’s scripts and piece them into a script with a glue with your cruise director, Julie McCoy. long-running stick. There had to be a cruise story, a romance, Nobody minded in those days, as long as you dramedy The Love and a lighthearted story. The first scene was were getting your job done. I quit The Love Boat. Here, the boarding, the next day was in Mexico, and then Boat, believe it or not, because they hired RAQUEL WELCH DIANA ROSS CHER & TINA TURNER LYNDA CARTER... 64-year-old another night [was] on the way back before another writer with many years of experience & BEYONCÉ? Welch asked Mackie to outfit Ross didn’t own this nude span- Mackie made two of these flame- writer-producer disembarking the next day. I guess it got a little who was getting paid more than me. I asked part of her European nightclub gled dress. “She borrowed that inspired strip dresses—one for Another version of this Turner- reflects on the act. “She says, ‘I want a hot from Cher!” Mackie chuckles. Turner and one for Cher, who did inspired dress would emerge in formulaic, but you have to understand there to be released from my contract, and to my

extraordinary, drug- 1978 dress! I want a dress like Tina “They were these curvy but a number together on The Sonny 1980 when Lynda Carter wore a were always new guest stars coming in. We got surprise they were happy. I lived on residuals fueled experience. Turner would wear,’” he recalls. skinny, skinny girls.” Apparently and Cher Show. Cher wore hers Mackie creation for a tribute to everybody who was either on the way up or the until I became sober in 1983. For a while “So I did this whole thing of loans happened fairly often. again for a photo shoot. (“It’s Turner. And 25 years later, when way down. The first script I ever wrote was for I thought that was what was going to be on my bronze and browns, like a cave- “She’d call and ask Cher, ‘Can great for photographs because Turner was being honored at woman.” After Welch wore the I borrow this? I’m doing a photo you see legs—you see every- the Kennedy Center, who came Donna Mills, who became a big star. We had tombstone—that my only accomplishment in dress on a magazine cover, session,’ and [Cher] would say, thing,” says Mackie.) Turner later calling? “Beyoncé was going to Ethel Merman, the entire Mills family, Reggie life was that I created the character of the Mackie got an unexpected ‘Oh, sure.’ She’d send her over featured hers in a nightclub do a number, and they said, BOAT LOVE THE Jackson when he was a big deal, and Ray captain’s bastard daughter, Vicki, on The Love phone call—from Turner. “‘I’ve [to my studio], and we’d let her act—with a new addition. “We ‘Do you have anything?’” Mackie Bolger. Hollywood was a different place at that Boat. Within the past few months I was been in Europe, and I saw this have whatever she wanted.” made this big feathered back- recalls. “Lynda’s dress went picture of Raquel Welch,’” piece that goes on her shoulders right onto Beyoncé.” He laughs. time. This was pre-AIDS, and pre–drug crisis. flipping channels and came across an episode

Mackie recalls Turner saying. for her entrance,” Mackie “It’s so weird how [the dresses] ABC/PHOTOFEST : Cocaine was very accepted. It was just part of I wrote. It was not anything that I really “’And I want a dress like that.’” recalls. “Nobody’s as exciting can get moved around from Above the landscape. I was doing it pretty much out Lauren remembered emotionally, but I did remember on stage as Tina. She’s just a place to place. You just have to in the open. I had an IBM Selectric typewriter Tewes, some of the lines. And I still get those residual whirling dervish of excitement.” know who to ask.” Jill Whelan, in my little bungalow, and I had a big glass and Gavin checks. They’re, like, $15, $20 a kick, but they Mackie will design costumes for Carol Burnett’s upcoming ABC pilot, Household Name, exec-produced by Amy Poehler. ashtray turned upside down next to the type- MacLeod add up to a good meal every year.”

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