Elizabeth Haffenden
Elizabeth Haffenden was a British costume designer. She was best known for creating the costumes for most of the Gainsborough melodramas in the 1940s and for her longstanding collaboration with Joan Bridge on many notable film productions in latter years. Her accolades include two Academy Awards and a BAFTA Award.
Life and career
Elizabeth Haffenden was born in Croydon to wholesale draper James Wilson-Haffenden and Edith Carruthers. Elizabeth Haffenden trained at Croydon School of Art and the Royal College of Art. After working as a commercial artist she entered theatre costume design working with Laurence Irving.Haffenden's first film costume designs were for Colonel Blood and The Wicked Lady. Costume historian Pam Cook has described Haffenden's Gainsborough projects as "visually splendid... and the company promoted several of the films on the basis of their costumes". Haffenden's designs for Caravan and The Wicked Lady anticipated the post-war new look fashion style, and offered "extravagant sexual display" through low cut bodices and translucent fabrics. Costumes from The Wicked Lady were acquired for the collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum.
In the 1950s Haffenden worked as resident costume designer for the British branch of MGM-British studios, Elstree.
From the late 1950s Haffenden worked as a freelance costume designer with Joan Bridge, who had worked as a Technicolor consultant at Gainsborough in 1946, where the pair met. Haffenden and Bridge worked together on period dramas, comedies and thrillers, starting with Ben Hur, which won the Academy Award for Best Costume Design.
Haffenden and Bridge were frequent collaborators with director Fred Zinnemann. They worked on five films for Zinnemann, across a range of periods and locations that required thoughtful costuming, including The Sundowners, set in 1920s Australia, the Spanish-set Behold a Pale Horse, Tudor drama A Man for All Seasons and the recent history of Day of the Jackal.
Haffenden and Bridge were jointly nominated for British Academy of Film and Television Awards for The Amorous ''Adventures of Moll Flanders and Half a Sixpence, and were awarded a BAFTA and Oscar for A Man for All Seasons.
In subsequent decades Haffenden and Bridge designed costumes for notable films including The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and Fiddler on the Roof.
Haffenden died in London on 29 May 1976, while she was prepping costumes for the film Julia.''
Filmography
| Year | Title | Director | Notes |
| 1936 | The Last Waltz | Leo Mittler | |
| 1942 | The Young Mr. Pitt | Carol Reed | |
| 1943 | The Man in Grey | Leslie Arliss | |
| 1943 | Dear Octopus | Harold French | |
| 1944 | Fanny by Gaslight | Anthony Asquith | |
| 1944 | Give Us the Moon | Val Guest | |
| 1944 | Two Thousand Women | Frank Launder | |
| 1944 | Love Story | Leslie Arliss | |
| 1945 | Madonna of the Seven Moons | Arthur Crabtree | |
| 1945 | A Place of One's Own | Bernard Knowles | |
| 1945 | I'll Be Your Sweetheart | Val Guest | |
| 1945 | The Wicked Lady | Leslie Arliss | |
| 1946 | Caravan | Arthur Crabtree | |
| 1946 | Bedelia | Lance Comfort | |
| 1946 | The Magic Bow | Bernard Knowles | |
| 1947 | The Man Within | Bernard Knowles | |
| 1947 | Jassy | Bernard Knowles | |
| 1947 | Uncle Silas | Charles Frank | |
| 1948 | Call of the Blood | John Clements Ladislao Vajda | |
| 1948 | The First Gentleman | Alberto Cavalcanti | |
| 1949 | The Bad Lord Byron | David MacDonald | |
| 1949 | Christopher Columbus | David MacDonald | |
| 1949 | The Spider and the Fly | Robert Hamer | Haffenden only designed costumes for Nadia Gray |
| 1950 | So Long at the Fair | Terence Fisher Antony Darnborough | |
| 1950 | Portrait of Clare | Lance Comfort | |
| 1951 | The Late Edwina Black | Maurice Elvey | |
| 1953 | Laughing Anne | Herbert Wilcox | |
| 1954 | Beau Brummell | Curtis Bernhardt | |
| 1955 | The Dark Avenger | Henry Levin | |
| 1955 | Footsteps in the Fog | Arthur Lubin | Haffenden only designed costumes for Stewart Granger |
| 1956 | Bhowani Junction | George Cukor | |
| 1956 | Moby Dick | John Huston | |
| 1957 | Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison | John Huston | |
| 1958 | Davy | Michael Relph | |
| 1958 | Carve Her Name with Pride | Lewis Gilbert | Haffenden only designed costumes for Virginia McKenna |
| 1958 | I Accuse! | José Ferrer | |
| 1959 | Ben-Hur | William Wyler | |
| 1960 | The Sundowners | Fred Zinnemann | |
| 1962 | I Thank a Fool | Robert Stevens | |
| 1964 | Behold a Pale Horse | Fred Zinnemann | with Joan Bridge |
| 1965 | The Amorous Adventures of Moll Flanders | Terence Young | with Joan Bridge |
| 1965 | The Liquidator | Jack Cardiff | with Joan Bridge |
| 1966 | A Man for All Seasons | Fred Zinnemann | with Joan Bridge |
| 1967 | Half a Sixpence | George Sidney | with Joan Bridge |
| 1968 | Chitty Chitty Bang Bang | Ken Hughes | with Joan Bridge |
| 1969 | The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie | Ronald Neame | with Joan Bridge |
| 1971 | Fiddler on the Roof | Norman Jewison | with Joan Bridge |
| 1972 | Pope Joan | Michael Anderson | with Joan Bridge |
| 1973 | The Day of the Jackal | Fred Zinnemann | with Joan Bridge |
| 1973 | The Homecoming | Peter Hall | with Joan Bridge |
| 1974 | Luther | Guy Green | with Joan Bridge |
| 1975 | Conduct Unbecoming | Michael Anderson | with Joan Bridge |