Albert Wolsky, the two-time Academy Award-winning costume designer whose work spanned Broadway and Hollywood, has died at the age of 95. He passed away on Saturday, 23 May, at his home in Hollywood, with his death announced by friends and colleagues on social media and confirmed by Deadline.
Born on 24 November 1930 in Paris, Wolsky moved to the United States and attended City College of New York. At the age of 30, he switched careers from the travel industry to pursue costume design, beginning with an entry-level position under the legendary Helene Pons during the original Broadway production of Camelot in the early 1960s.
In those early years, he assisted prominent designers including Ann Roth, Irene Sharaff and Patricia Zipprodt. He designed costumes under his own name for the 1965 Broadway production Generation, followed by Pousse-Café (1966) and Neil Simon's The Sunshine Boys in 1972. Later Broadway credits included The Country Girl (2008) and The Heiress (2012), which earned him a Tony nomination.
Wolsky's screen career began in 1968 with the television film Of Mice and Men and the feature The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter. He won Oscars for All That Jazz (1979) and Bugsy (1991), and was nominated for Sophie's Choice, The Journey of Natty Gann, Toys, Across the Universe and Revolutionary Road. In 2015, he received the Costume Designers Guild Award for Excellence in Contemporary Film for Birdman.
Among his many other film credits were Grease, Manhattan, Lenny, An Unmarried Woman, Down and Out in Beverly Hills, You've Got Mail, Runaway Bride, Road to Perdition and Ad Astra. He also served four terms on the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Board of Governors representing costume designers.
