Ann Bishop Roth (born October 30, 1931) is an American costume designer. She has designed the costumes of various prominent films, and has been nominated five times for the Academy Award for Best Costume Design, winning twice for The English Patient (1996) and Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (2020). In the 2023 movie Barbie, Roth, at 91 years old, appears onscreen to share a pivotal^[2] scene with Barbie (played by Margot Robbie).

Life and career

Roth was born in Hanover, Pennsylvania, the daughter of Eleanor and James Roth.^[1] Roth is a Carnegie Mellon graduate who began her career as a scenery painter for the Pittsburgh Opera. She intended to remain in the field of production design until she met Irene Sharaff at the Bucks County Playhouse. Sharaff invited her to California to assist her with costumes on the film Brigadoon and suggested Roth apprentice with her for five films and five Broadway productions before setting out on her own.^[3]

Roth's first Hollywood film was 1964's The World of Henry Orient, where her designs included "monogrammed handmade yellow silk pajamas" for glamorous womanizer Peter Sellers.^[2]

According to Glenn Frankel, Roth "designed not just costumes but characters" for the 1969 film Midnight Cowboy.^[4][5] Roth found elegant but grimy white pants for Dustin Hoffman's character Ratso Rizzo on street-sale tables in New York City. Because Jon Voight's fringed suede jacket had to "look real and unhip," Roth made it herself. For Brenda Vaccaro's socialite character to wear in a sex scene, Roth paid $200 for a fox-fur jacket owned by one of her neighbors.^[6]

Roth as costume designer created a "show-stopping" nightgown for Barbra Streisand to wear in her first non-musical film The Owl and the Pussycat (1970). The short black nightgown featured appliqué pink hands cupping the breasts^[7] and (to quote Roth's own description, "a heart on her pee-pee."^[2] Interviewed in 2013 about the origins of the costume idea, Roth said that her research included "looking for dirty, erotic, skuzzy underwear" in the pornographic magazine Screw, after which "somehow or another I made it up."^[8] Roth later re-used her hands-on-breasts design for the 2013 stage play The Nance,^[8] which won that year's Tony Award for costume design.^[9]

Roth's first Oscar nomination was for 1984's Places in the Heart, set in Depression-era Texas.^[10] Roth persuaded Sally Field that, for her "going-into-town-to-ask-for-a-loan-at-the-bank" scenes, a 1930s-type crotchless girdle would help her to walk and sit the right way.^[2] The costume Oscar that year, however, went to Miloš Forman's Amadeus.^[11]

Roth's costumes for three distinct time frames in The English Patient (1996) earned her first Oscar. According to producer Saul Zaentz, Roth worked for half her usual salary on the film "because she believed in the screenplay."^[12] Roth's research for the costumes included the British Royal Geographical Society archives and 1930s photos of Egypt by photojournalist Lee Miller. Many of the film's varied military uniforms were authentic from the period; others were copied line-for-line from originals by a Savile Row tailor.^[13][14]

Also in 1996, Roth did costumes for The Birdcage, a comedy film starring starring Robin Williams and Nathan Lane as the flamboyant owners of a Florida drag club. Talking about his costume, Williams remembered "those ballroom pants and the silk shirts with the shoulder pads. The details were amazing. This was a guy who was still living in the ’70s. The clothes captured exactly who Armand was for me."^[12]

Her most-awarded film was 2020's Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, where her costume designs (including flapper costumes and a rubber body suit for Viola Davis based on the body measurements of Aretha Franklin) won the Costume Designers Guild Award for Excellence in Period Film, Britain's BAFTA, and the Academy Award for Best Costume Design.^[15]

In the 2023 film Barbie, Roth appears onscreen in a cameo role, portraying and credited as "the woman on a bench." In the scene, Barbie sits down besides Roth and tells the 91 year-old that she is "so beautiful", and Roth responds with a smile, "I know it."^[2] In a Rolling Stone interview, director Greta Gerwig said that the brief scene "doesn’t lead anywhere" but "If I cut the scene, I don’t know what this movie is about."^[16] Maureen Dowd in The New York Times described Roth's interaction with Barbie as a "pivotal scene."^[2]

Roth's more than one hundred screen credits for costume design include The World of Henry Orient, Midnight Cowboy, Klute, Working Girl, Silkwood, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, The Mambo Kings, The Birdcage, Primary Colors, Cold Mountain, Closer, Freedomland, The Good Shepherd, Margot at the Wedding, Mamma Mia!, Evening, and Ma Rainey's Black Bottom.

Roth's dozens of stage credits include The Odd Couple, The Star-Spangled Girl, Purlie, Seesaw, They're Playing Our Song, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, Biloxi Blues, Butley, The Vertical Hour, Deuce, and The Waverly Gallery.

Filmography