Oscar-winning costumer Mary Wills
The Associated Press
SEDONA – Mary Lillian Wills, who won an Academy Award in 1962 for her color costumes in ”The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm,” has died. She was 82.
Ms. Wills died Feb. 13 in Sedona after battling renal failure for about a year. She was buried in Wickenberg. She had retired in Sedona in 1983.
Ms. Wills worked on more than 50 major films during her career, said Tony Trust, her companion for nearly 25 years.
Because ”The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm” was an independent production, ”it was really a great honor from her peers that they voted for that film,” Trust said.
Ms. Wills’ family moved to Albuquerque, N.M., in the 1930s and she began her career creating sets and costumes at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, Trust said Thursday.
Ms. Wills, who earlier had attended the University of Arizona, completed her bachelor of arts degree at UNM and was accepted to Yale University’s art and drama graduate school, Trust said.
She received her first sketch artist job working on the movie ”Gone With the Wind,” he said.
She went on to create costumes for such films as ”Song of the South,” ”Hans Christian Andersen,” ”The Diary of Anne Frank,” ”A Certain Smile,” ”Cape Fear” and ”Carousel.”
Ms. Wills also did most of the costume design for ”Camelot,” but her name was left off the film credits, Trust said. The film won Oscars for costume and set design in 1967.
”They told her at the last minute that she wouldn’t receive screen credit, which really upset her a lot,” Trust said.
Ms. Wills also worked for many years as a costume designer for Shipstead & Johnson’s ”Ice Follies.”
She created the outfits worn by ice skater Dorothy Hamill in the live show ”Nutcracker on Ice,” said Paul Cooper, who worked for the ice-skating show.
”She (Ms. Wills) was a very bright lady who was really incredible with colors,” Cooper said