Costumer Theoni V. Aldredge Dies at 88

She was born on Aug. 22, 1922, as Theoni Athanasiou Vachlioti, in Salonika, Greece. Her father, Athanasios, was an army general and politician. Her mother, Meropi, died when she was 5 years old. She studied at the American School in Athens. Her father encouraged his grown daughter to travel, and she immigrated to the United States in 1949 to attend Chicago's Goodman Theatre on a scholarship. In New York, on her way to Chicago, she saw the 1946 film version of "Caesar and Cleopatra" and was inspired to become a costume designer.

She married actor Tom Aldredge in 1953, and the two moved to New York City. Her first Broadway job came in 1959, creating costumes for Tennessee Williams' "Sweet Birth of Youth," starring Geraldine Page. In 1961 Aldredge worked on a New York Shakespeare Festival production of "Much Ado About Nothing," which began her long partnership with producer Joseph Papp. For 20 years she was the festival's principal designer.

In 1974 producer David Merrick hired Aldredge to create the 1920s wardrobe for his film of "The Great Gatsby," for which she won an Academy Award. Three years later Aldredge won her first Tony Award, for her designs for the musical "Annie." She went on to receive two more Tonys, for the musicals "Barnum" (1980) and "La Cage aux Folles" (1983). Aldredge became known for her opulent costumes, large budgets, and love of the color pale lavender. Over the course of her career she created the wardrobes for more than 300 film and stage productions, including the original productions of "Dreamgirls" "42nd Street," and "A Chorus Line," as well as the Arthur Laurents–directed 1989 revival of "Gypsy," starring Tyne Daly.

Indeed, Aldredge was Laurents' go-to designer, first working with him on Broadway in the early 1960s on "I Can Get It for You Wholesale" and "Anyone Can Whistle" and continuing through 1991's "Nick & Nora." Later on they worked together Off-Broadway on Laurents' 1995 play "The Radical Mystique," at Manhattan Theatre Club, and Lincoln Center's 2000 revival of his "The Time of the Cuckoo," and furthered their collaboration at New Jersey's George Street Playhouse on the playwright's "Jolson Sings Again" (1999), "Claudia Lazslo" (2001), "Attacks on the Heart" and "The Vibrator" (both in 2003), and "Two Lives" (2005), as well as the 2004 revival of Laurents' Tony-winning musical "Hallelujah, Baby!"

In 2002 Aldredge received an Irene Sharaff Lifetime Achievement Award. Her final Broadway credit was the 2006 revival of "A Chorus Line."

She is survived by her husband and her immense influence on the field of costume design. There will be no memorial service. Her ashes will be taken to Greece.