Travilla Trailers
Valley of the Dolls: A World Premiere Voyage TrailerJacqueline Susann and the Valley of the Dolls Trailer
The man who draped a fringed Idaho potato sack on Marilyn Monroe for a famous snapshot - proving that she looked good in anything - was born on Catalina Island off the California coast on March 22 1920. He studied at the Chouinard School of Art in L.A., showing a precocious talent for drawing fashion design from an early age. By the time he was sixteen, he made money by selling sketches of costume designs for showgirls he had studied at burlesque houses.
Found unfit for wartime duties due to flat feet, William Travilla made his way to Hollywood and signed his first contract as costume designer at Columbia in 1941. However, during his two-year tenure he received rather few assignments and left disillusioned. Little work came his way during the next few years, until, in 1946, he was spotted in a nightclub (selling travel sketches of the South Pacific) by the actress Ann Sheridan, who became an instant admirer of his work. Sheridan persuaded Travilla to become her personal costume designer at Warner Brothers. This didn't quite come to pass, though he did design her gowns for Nora Prentiss (1947). More importantly, he notched up his first major success by winning the Academy Award for the lavish and colourful costumes of Adventures of Don Juan (1948) in conjunction with Leah Rhodes and Marjorie Best. After his three year contract was up, Travilla went on to 20th Century Fox, for what would become the most productive period of his career in the film business. At the same time, he set up his own high end fashion salon, Travilla Inc., in Los Angeles, creating several collections of elegant, award-winning designs.
Travilla dressed many established stars, from Marlene Dietrich and Joan Crawford, to Loretta Young. However, he is chiefly remembered for the iconic gowns, designed for Marilyn Monroe's famous hourglass shape in eight of her most popular films. These include her sexy satin number from How to Marry a Millionaire (1953), the gold lame dress with the sun ray pleats glimpsed in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) and, subsequently, at the 1953 Photoplay Awards (over Travilla's objections); and, of course, the white cocktail dress famously uplifted above the subway grate in The Seven Year Itch (1955). One of three versions of the latter sold at auction for $ 4.6 million in 2011. Despite their close working relationship, Travilla later went on record describing Marilyn on a personal level as 'childlike' and plagued by feelings of inadequacy.
After his contract with Fox expired in 1956, Travilla tended to his own exclusive label, designing a collection of ready-to-wear 'California' fashion. In the 1960's, he continued to freelance, working primarily for television. He showed off a young Connie Sellecca to great effect in a murder mystery revolving around the fashion industry, fittingly titled She's Dressed to Kill (1979). Ever synonymous with a bygone era of glamour, he went on to win two Emmy Awards for Outstanding Costume Design for The Scarlett O'Hara War (1980) and for Dallas (1978). An exhibition of his personal collection, under the auspices of his longtime collaborator William Sarris, went on a world tour in 2008.
Most Popular Travilla Trailers
Total trailers found: 83
31 December 1943
Bat Masterson, who after failing to secure a job as a newspaper reporter becomes marshal of Dodge City.
18 September 1951
An alien and a robot land on Earth after World War II and tell mankind to be peaceful or face destruction.
03 June 1955
When his family goes away for summer vacation, a hitherto faithful publishing executive with an overactive imagination is tempted by an attractive new neighbor.
15 July 1953
Lorelei Lee is a beautiful showgirl engaged to be married to the wealthy Gus Esmond, much to the disapproval of Gus' rich father, Esmond Sr.
17 June 1953
Ex-marshal Chino Bull has hung up his guns until his prospecting partner is shot dead. Chino then takes over as the law in town, forming a friendship with gun-man Mitch Hardin and making enemies of the Logan brothers.
14 October 1981
Biography of the former first lady, focusing on her years as a photojournalist and leading up to her marriage to John F.
10 November 1953
Three women set out to find eligible millionaires to marry, but find true love in the process.
30 April 1954
An itinerant farmer and his young son help a heart-of-gold saloon singer search for her estranged husband.
14 November 1952
A musical comedy based on several Damon Runyon short stories. When a bookie on the run, Robert 'Numbers' Foster, falls for a pretty country songbird, Emily Ann Stackerlee , he'll do anything to help her make it big -- including a stint in jail to pay for his crimes.
07 November 1947
A penniless composer marries a young widow with a baby—even though he is in love with his brother's fiancée.
24 December 1947
Musical biography of Irish 19th century tenor Chauncey Olcott.
23 January 1980
Giff Hoyt, a cafe owner in Cabo Blanco, Peru after World War II is caught between refuge-seeking Nazis and their enemies.
29 September 1950
The Skipper is a charming old man loved by all his neighbors. What they don't know is that he is also Mr.
03 September 1952
Research chemist Barnaby Fulton works on a fountain of youth pill for a chemical company. One of the labs chimps gets loose in the laboratory and mixes chemicals, but then pours the mix into the water cooler.
25 September 1954
Tensions erupt within an Arizona cattle baron's household when his three sons vie for control of the ranch.
18 May 1980
First he seduced her. Then he made her a star. He was Johnny Hyde, 52-year-old agent, friend, lover. She was an unemployed starlet — destined to be America's greatest sex goddess.
16 February 1955
The story of the peace mission from the US cavalry to the Cheyenne Indians in Wyoming during the 1870s.
08 October 1968
Boston is being terrorized by a series of seemingly random murders of women. Based on the true story, the film follows the investigators path through several leads before introducing the Strangler as a character.
07 February 1952
The story of Mexican revolutionary Emiliano Zapata, who led a rebellion against the corrupt, oppressive dictatorship of president Porfirio Díaz in the early 20th century.
27 December 1967
Lured by their dreams of fame and fortune, three ambitious young women enter the world of show business and discover how easy it is to sink into a celebrity nightmare of ego, alcohol and pills — the beloved "dolls.
18 July 1952
An airline pilot pursues a live-in babysitter at his hotel and gradually realizes she is not as stable as perhaps she should be.
30 July 1949
After getting her start in her parents' vaudeville act, Marilyn Miller is taken under the wing of dance sensation Jack Donahue.
13 May 1953
Stage-and-night club star Jeannie Laird buys her first home, and everyone who is anyone comes to her first garden party only to be blinded by smoke from next door.
09 July 1954
A trio of American adventurers marooned in rural Mexico are recruited by a beautiful woman to rescue her husband from Apaches.
20 May 1980
The story of the ill-fated romance between Greta Garbo and John Gilbert.
16 December 1954
Molly and Terry Donahue, plus their three children, are The Five Donahues. Youngest son Tim meets hat-check girl Vicky and the family act begins to fall apart.
28 October 1954
When a young stage hopeful is found dead, suspicion falls on her mentor, a successful Broadway producer.
11 January 1956
A middle-aged ex-serviceman who plans to re-enlist is shocked to learn that not only did he fail his medical exam, his wife has enlisted - and is really making the grade in the Air Force.
27 May 1953
In New York City, an insolent pickpocket, Skip McCoy, inadvertently sets off a chain of events when he targets ex-prostitute Candy and steals her wallet.
01 February 1954
A privately-financed scientist and his colleagues hire an ex-Navy officer to conduct an Alaskan submarine expedition in order to prevent a Red Chinese anti-American plot that may lead to World War III.
22 September 1955
Two brothers discharged from the Confederate Army join a businessman for a cattle drive from Texas to Montana where they run into raiding Jayhawkers, angry Sioux, rough terrain and bad weather.
02 September 1955
A man in priestly robes, seemingly the long-awaited Father O'Shea, arrives at a little-frequented Catholic mission in 1947 China.
16 August 1950
Two hoodlum brothers are brought into hospital for gunshot wounds, and when one dies, the other accuses their Black doctor of murder.
26 May 1950
The fastest gun in the West tries to escape his reputation.
25 May 1943
Popular mailcoach driver Uncle Willie is in fact in league with the town's crooked banker. They plan to have the bank robbed after emptying it, and when Willie's choice for this doesn't show in time, he gets some local boys to do it.
02 May 1947
A wealthy socialite bored with her life meets and falls in love with a struggling songwriter on the verge of leaving New York and quitting the music business.
20 May 1948
Unjustly booted out of the cavalry, Mike McComb strikes out for Nevada, and deciding never to be used again, ruthlessly works his way up to becoming one of the most powerful silver magnates in the west.
24 October 1946
After an innocent man is executed in a case he was responsible for, a Scotland Yard superintendent finds himself investigating the murder of his key witness.
28 November 1941
Cholita, after a long absence in Mexico City, is returning home to take up her duties as head of the rancho and, as everyone expects, to marry her childhood sweetheart José.
31 August 1956
Cowboys Beauregard Decker and Virgil Blessing attend a rodeo in Phoenix, where Decker falls in love with beautiful cafe singer Cherie.
20 April 1951
In this fast-paced remake of the Maurice Chevalier vehicle Folies Bergère, talented Danny Kaye plays both a performer and a heroic French military pilot.
26 July 1952
Thornton Sayre, a respected college professor - secretly formerly a silent films romantic action hero - is disturbed, feeling his privacy has been violated, and his professional credibility as a scholar jeopardized, when he learns his old movies have been resurrected and are being aired on TV.
15 July 1960
Alfred Eaton, an ambitious young executive, climbs to the top of New York's financial world as his marriage crumbles.
14 March 1951
Andre Laurence accompanies his college roommate, Tenga, back to Tenga's Polynesian island home. There, Andre becomes attracted to the native life and his friend's sister, Kalua.
08 February 1947
Locals in an Italian village believe evil has taken over the estate of a recently deceased pianist where murder has taken place.
25 March 1951
At a desolate relay station in the west, a stagecoach attendant and a stranded woman traveller are held captive by a band of escaped convicts.
18 May 1956
Philip Hannon, a blind playwright living in London, overhears part of a conversation , that leads him into a desperate race, to find a kidnapped child.
27 July 1950
A medical examiner discovers that an innocent shooting victim in a robbery died of bubonic plague. With only 48 hours to find the killer, who is now a ticking time bomb threatening the entire city, a grisly manhunt through the seamy underworld of the New Orleans Waterfront is underway.
02 December 1949
Emery Slade was one of the brightest stars in Hollywood in 1932, but by 1949 his career has hit the skids.
31 December 1953
London, 1888: on the night of the third Jack the Ripper killing, soft-spoken Mr. Slade, a research pathologist, takes lodgings with the Harleys, including a gloomy attic room for "experiments.
25 November 1954
A Texan robs a train in an effort to prevent his father from committing the crime. A young girl attempts to help him after learning about the theft.
30 April 1949
A stranded carnival dancer takes on a corrupt political boss when she marries into small-town society.
31 December 1949
An illiterate stooge in a traveling medicine show wanders into a strange town and is picked up on a vagrancy charge.
22 February 1947
Quiet, organised Dr. Talbot meets nightclub singer Nora Prentiss when she is slightly hurt in a street accident.
16 October 1953
On a tramp steamer off Central America are Mr. and Mrs. Sheppard, five prisoners en route to a Nicaraguan prison, and Corbett, an American carrying money for a Honduran counter-revolution.
15 May 1956
Robert Ryan plays an aging sheriff responsible for law and order in a frontier cattle town. Virginia Mayo plays his fiancee.
04 August 1954
A group of confederate prisoners escape to Canada and plan to rob the banks and set fire to the small town of Saint Albans in Vermont.
19 August 1947
A woman uncovers deadly secrets when she visits her late husband's family.
17 February 1950
When Willie leaves home to join the war effort he is all ready to become a hero, but he is only frustrated when his posting ends up to be in his home town, and he is recruited into training, keeping him from the action.
24 December 1948
Spanish Lothario Don Juan, the legendary lover and adventurer returns to Spain following a scandal and comes to the aid of his queen, who is under threat from sinister forces.
