Remembering Bob Mackie

SPEAKER_1 (0:01)

Bullseye with Jesse Thorn is a production of maximumfun.org and is distributed by NPR.

Jesse Thorn (0:12)

It's Bullseye. I'm Jesse Thorn. Consider for a moment, my friends, the sequin. A tiny round piece of, I think, plastic, usually smaller than a dime, a little bigger than the head of a screw. Maybe you find a sequin on the ground or at the bottom of a drawer. You think, I should toss this, right? But if you get a thousand of them together, there's something else. They're a shoe or a matador jacket, or how about this?

Cher's outfit from the Oscars in 1986 Hair that explodes outward like a cartoon cat that bit into a live wire. An elaborate sequined head piece. Below that, a diamond patterned bralette covered in black sequins. Below that, miles of bare midriff. And from the hips down, a skirt made entirely of, folks, you guessed it, black sequins.

It is a remarkable outfit. Equal parts insanity and genuine beauty. It was designed by Bob Mackie. Mackie died a few weeks ago. He was 87 years old.

Bob Mackie, the sultan of sequin, the baron of beads, the ruler of the humble rhinestone. He made a career out of dressing big personalities. He did it as a designer in the real world, and particularly as an award winning costume artist for stage and screen. Which big personalities? Well, Cher, as we mentioned, Madonna, Miley Cyrus, Tina Turner, Annette Midler, Elton John, Lucille Ball, Carol Burnett. Barbie? I mean, literally Barbie?

Oh, and maybe you watch RuPaul's Drag Race. He was the very first guest judge on the show and the first person to receive the Drag Race Lifetime Achievement Award. When I talked to Mackie in 2025, he had just been profiled in a wonderful documentary. Bob Mackie, Naked Illusion, covers the era defining design work he did. Bob was nice enough to invite us into his home to talk with him, his beautiful home in Palm Springs. If you're listening to me on the radio or on a podcast, you can see what I mean by checking out the video of this interview on the Bullseye YouTube page. Let's get into it. My conversation at the home of the charming and brilliant, Bob Mackie.

Bob Mackie, welcome to Bullseye. I'm so happy to have you on the show.

Bob Mackie (2:48)

Thank you.

Jesse Thorn (2:50)

Bob, you have been both a fashion designer, runway fashion designer and a costume designer.

Bob Mackie (2:55)

Right.

Jesse Thorn (2:56)

What's the difference between those jobs?

Bob Mackie (2:58)

Huge difference. I mean, when you're designing for a character that's probably written in a script and you want that audience to sort of know who that person is when they walk on stage or on camera, and it can really help the writer and the actor if his costume is perfect. Where the other is just for anyone who just sort of likes it and wants to spend the money.

It's just a whole different thing.

Jesse Thorn (3:33)

I mean, I think there are people who design runway fashion who say they're like telling a story, expressing a conceptual. No, they're not.

Bob Mackie (3:39)

They're just making a cute frock and hope somebody buys it.

Jesse Thorn (3:44)

It seems like your sympathies here lie on the side of costume design.

Bob Mackie (3:47)

Well, it does, because that's what I always wanted to be. I never interested me.

I never looked in a fashion magazine when I was a kid, but I looked in all the movie magazines and, you know, theater magazines and all of that. That was more interesting to me.

Jesse Thorn (4:03)

What's a dress or an outfit that you remember from your childhood?

Bob Mackie (4:08)

That's hard. Well, actually, there was one.

It was, I forgot the name of the movie, but I'll tell you, it was Gene Kelly and Catherine Grayson and Dean Stockwell playing a child. And he was the son of a sailor. So Dean Stockwell, who was about my age at the time, although I think he was playing younger than he was, he wore the best sailor suits I've ever seen in my life, and I wanted them so badly. But there was just no way it was all made in the studio, you know, work rooms and stuff. And I was really young.

Jesse Thorn (4:48)

How old are we talking about?

Bob Mackie (4:49)

Well, we're probably talking about seven, six, seven, I think, if I'm not mistaken. I don't know, you know, I could have been. I don't think I was younger. I think that's about where I was.

Jesse Thorn (5:02)

I feel like sailor suit is the classic thing that parents want to put on their children that children don't want to wear.