Famed Broadway Costumer Florence Klotz's Tony Award for Sale on eBay

By: Feb. 03, 2009
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The New York Times is reporting that famed Costume Designer Florence Klotz's Tony Award is for sale on eBay, the starting bid for the trophy at $10,000 (with an option to buy it outright for $20,000).

But the Times has a huge inaccuracy in the piece, as they describe Ms. Klotz herself as posting the auction, which is fairly impossible as she sadly passed away in 2006.

It would appear the auction is being set up by family or the estate. To read the Times 'take', click here.

Florence Klotz, six-time Tony Award-winning and Academy Award-nominated costume designer, died Wednesday, November 1, 2006 at her home in Manhattan. She was 86.

The cause was heart failure.

Know as Flossie to friends, Klotz was born Kathrina E. Klotz, on October 28, 1920, in Brooklyn, New York.

In a career in the theater that spanned more than 4 decades, Klotz worked on 60 Broadway productions. Her first was in 1951 as assistant to Irene Sharaff on the original production of The King and I. She also often worked as assistant costume designer to Lucinda Ballard.

Klotz won six Tony Awards as Best Costume Designer, her first in 1972 for her legendary designs for Follies. 1973 she won her second Tony for A Little Night Music, followed by a third win in 1976 for Pacific Overtures. Her other Tony Awards came for her costume designs for 1985's Grind, Kiss of the Spider Woman in 1993, and Hal Prince's rethinking of Show Boat in 1995, for which Klotz designed 585 costumes.

Klotz's other Broadway costume design credits include On the Twentieth Century, City of Angels, Never Too Late, Take Her She's Mine, The Owl and the Pussycat, It's a Bird, It's a Plane, It's Superman, Side by Side by Sondheim, Roza, Rags, Jerry's Girls, and The Little Foxes starring Elizabeth Taylor.

Klotz has recreated her designs, including City of Angels and Kiss of the Spider Woman, for London's West End. For her work in the theater she has also won five Drama Desk Awards, three L.A. Critic Circle Awards and two Outer Critics' Circle Awards. In 2002, Klotz received the Patricia Zipprodt Award from the Fashion Institute of Technology, and in 2005, Klotz received the Irene Sharaff Lifetime Achievement Award.

In addition to her designs for the theater, Klotz has also designed for other areas of the arts, including ballets for Jerome Robbins, Madama Butterfly for Chicago Lyric Opera and Symphony on Ice for John Curry. Her film costume design credits include "Something for Everyone" starring Angela Lansbury and "A Little Night Music" starring Elizabeth Taylor; she was nominated for an Academy Award for the latter. Subsequently, Klotz designed Ms. Taylor's wedding ensemble for her wedding to Senator John Warner.



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