Albert Wolsky, the Man Behind Those Pants, Dies at 95

The two-time Oscar winner dressed Dustin Hoffman, Warren Beatty, and a generation of Hollywood's biggest productions before his death this week.

Albert Wolsky, costume designer on Grease, All That Jazz, Bugsy, and Lenny, died at age 95.
Wolsky won Academy Awards for All That Jazz (1980) and Bugsy (1992).
His most culturally durable credit may be the black spandex trousers worn by Olivia Newton-John in the closing sequence of Grease (1978).
He also designed costumes for Dustin Hoffman in Bob Fosse's Lenny (1974) and for Warren Beatty and Annette Bening in Bugsy.
Wolsky's career spanned more than four decades of studio and independent productions.

Albert Wolsky, the costume designer whose work on Grease, All That Jazz, and Bugsy earned him two Academy Awards and at least one pair of pants that became a cultural artifact, died this week at 95. No cause of death or specific date has been reported by the Hollywood Reporter, which broke the news.

Wolsky picked up his first Oscar for Bob Fosse's All That Jazz in 1980. His second came twelve years later for Barry Levinson's Bugsy, where he dressed Warren Beatty and Annette Bening across a production that ran to a $40 million budget and a gangster's wardrobe to match.

He had already dressed Dustin Hoffman in Lenny (1974) and, before the Oscars arrived, built the look of the Grease finale — the black spandex pants on Olivia Newton-John that film critics spent the following four decades arguing about.

His credits stretched from mid-1960s television into the 2000s, a run longer than most directors manage.

The pants outlasted the argument.