Ralph Jester (July 10, 1901 – September 25, 1991) was an American costume designer, sculptor, and artist. Born in Tyler, Texas, he graduated in 1919 from the Terrill School, the forerunner to St. Mark's School of Texas. He was educated at Yale, where he was an editor of the campus humor magazine '' The Yale Record''. After graduating from Yale and studying at the American Academy in Fontainebleau, France, Jester moved to Hollywood. By 1931, he was working as an

art director Art director is a title for a variety of similar job functions in theater, advertising, marketing, publishing, fashion, live-action and animated film and television, the Internet, and video games. It is the charge of a sole art director to supe ...

and

costume designer A costume designer is a person who designs costumes for a film, stage production or television show. The role of the costume designer is to create the characters' outfits or costumes and balance the scenes with texture and colour, etc. The costum ...

for Cecil B. DeMille and

Paramount Pictures Paramount Pictures Corporation, commonly known as Paramount Pictures or simply Paramount, is an American film production company, production and Distribution (marketing), distribution company and the flagship namesake subsidiary of Paramount ...

. For much of his career, his closest collaborator was

Edith Head Edith Claire Head (née Posener, October 28, 1897 – October 24, 1981) was an American film costume designer who won a record eight Academy Awards for Academy Award for Best Costume Design, Best Costume Design between 1949 and 1973, making he ...

. For DeMille's epic ''

Cleopatra Cleopatra VII Thea Philopator (; The name Cleopatra is pronounced , or sometimes in both British and American English, see and respectively. Her name was pronounced in the Greek dialect of Egypt (see Koine Greek phonology). She was ...

'' (1934), Jester designed

Claudette Colbert Claudette Colbert (koʊlˈbɛər/ kohl-BAIR, born Émilie "Lily" Claudette Chauchoin (ʃoʃwɛ̃/ show-shwan); September 13, 1903 – July 30, 1996) was an American actress. Colbert began her career in Broadway theater, Broadway productions dur ...

’s marble throne, as well as the busts of Colbert and her co star, Warren William. He is perhaps best known professionally as one of the costume designers of '' The Ten Commandments'' (1956). He also worked on such films as ''

Omar Khayyam Ghiyāth al-Dīn Abū al-Fatḥ ʿUmar ibn Ibrāhīm Nīshābūrī (18 May 1048 – 4 December 1131) (Persian language, Persian: غیاث الدین ابوالفتح عمر بن ابراهیم خیام نیشابورﻯ), commonly known as Omar ...

'' (1957) and '' The Buccaneer'' (1958). Earlier, in 1938,

Frank Lloyd Wright Frank Lloyd Wright Sr. (June 8, 1867 – April 9, 1959) was an American architect, designer, writer, and educator. He designed List of Frank Lloyd Wright works, more than 1,000 structures over a creative period of 70 years. Wright played a key ...

had designed a circular home for Jester in Santa Clara, California. Never built but considered a masterpiece of design, the house was Wright's first foray into using the circle in his buildings. Wright's Guggenheim Museum would not be built for another 20 years.https://apointindesign.com/2016/03/29/unbuilt-masterpieces-wrights-ralph-jester-house/ Jester later employed Lloyd Wright, Jr. to design a modernist house for him in Rancho Palos Verdes, California.

Oscar Nominations

Both were for Best Costumes. * 29th Academy Awards (color costumes category): Nominated for '' The Ten Commandments''. Nomination shared with Arnold Friberg,

, Dorothy Jeakins and John Jensen. Lost to '' The King and I''. * 31st Academy Awards: Nominated for '' The Buccaneer''. Nomination shared with

and John Jensen. Lost to '' Gigi''.

References

External links

* 1901 births 1991 deaths American costume designers People from Tyler, Texas {{US-film-bio-stub