Phyllis Dalton, a British costume designer whose unflinching attention to detail earned her Oscars for “Doctor Zhivago” and “Henry V” and acclaim for her emotive, striking costumes in “Lawrence of Arabia,” died on Jan. 9 at her home in Somerset, England. She was 99.
The death was confirmed by her stepson, James Barton.
Ms. Dalton’s keen eye was most apparent in period dramas and historical epics. She was known for her subtlety, crafting clothing that blended seamlessly into each film’s era.
“Anyone can make a smart frock,” she said in a brochure that was handed out during a 2012 British Academy of Film and Television Arts tribute to her. “It’s much more difficult to make people from the past who are wearing ordinary clothes look real.”
Phyllis Margaret Dalton was born on Oct. 16, 1925, in Chiswick, a suburb of London, to William John Tysoe Dalton, who worked for the Great Western Railway, and Elizabeth Marion (Mason) Dalton, who worked at a bank. Phyllis began studying costume design at Ealing Art College at 13 and later became a code breaker in the Women’s Royal Naval Service at the facility at Bletchley Park, a role she once said she considered “unbelievably boring.”
One of Ms. Dalton’s earliest stints in wardrobe was on the 1950 crime melodrama “Eye Witness.” She honed her skills working on costumes for Alfred Hitchcock’s 1956 remake of “The Man Who Knew Too Much,” Robert Rossen’s “Island in the Sun” (1957) and Carol Reed’s “Our Man in Havana” (1959). In the 1960s, she completed two of her most renowned designs three years apart, dressing entire armies for “Lawrence of Arabia” (1962) and “Doctor Zhivago” (1965).
After 50 years of experience on more than 40 feature films, including “The Princess Bride” (1987), she earned her last credit on Kenneth Branagh’s adaptation of “Much Ado About Nothing” in 1993.
Here’s a look back at some of her most celebrated costumes:
‘Lawrence of Arabia,’ 1962
Although Ms. Dalton did not win an Oscar for “Lawrence of Arabia,” the wool robe and gilt brocade that she created for T.E. Lawrence, portrayed by Peter O’Toole (left, with Michel Ray), was emblazoned into the annals of cinematic history. As the character loses his sanity, his off-white robe begins to wilt, becoming threadlike and soiled.
‘Henry V,’ 1989
Ms. Dalton was meticulous; her intricate process for aging the costumes in “Henry V” involved steel files, hair spray and grease.
“You’ve got to think what color the mud would really have been, make it in the place where it happened,” she said. “You’ve got to match your soldiers to mud — or your Arabs to desert, as in ‘Lawrence of Arabia.’ Deserts aren’t all yellow. I didn’t know that until I went to Jordan.”
‘Rob Roy: The Highland Rogue,’ 1953
On “Rob Roy,” which chronicled the wartime escapades of a Scottish highlander, Ms. Dalton, seen above adjusting Richard Todd’s kilt, used “all those plaids with their lovely vegetable dyes” to further her experiments with color and tone, she said in an interview with The Sunday Telegraph in 1990.
‘The Princess Bride,’ 1987
Although Ms. Dalton initially thought the script for “The Princess Bride” was “a load of rubbish,” the film — starring Cary Elwes as the farmhand to Robin Wright’s princess — has endured as a cult favorite and a childhood staple.
During filming, Mr. Elwes broke his toe, but Ms. Dalton, ever resourceful, fashioned a special shoe to protect his toe while still dressing him in the swashbuckling black pirate outfit and mask that he wore to save the princess from her kidnappers.
In addition to her stepson, Ms. Dalton is survived by her second husband, Christopher Synge Barton; her brother, John Dalton; and a step-granddaughter. Her first marriage, to the theater producer James Whiteley, ended in divorce in 1976.
