Bob Mackie, designer who dressed Marilyn Monroe, Elton John and Cher, dies at 87

Bob Mackie, a prolific costume and fashion designer whose dazzling, over-the-top creations helped define some of the most memorable moments in 20th century entertainment, died at 87 years old Monday of pneumonia in Palm Springs, Calif.

Mackie's official Instagram channel shared news about the designer's death.

"It is with a heavy heart that we share the news that Mr. Bob Mackie passed away today," the statement on Instagram said. "He lived his 87 years to the fullest, fulfilling his dream of being a Fashion and Costume Designer, which is all he ever wanted to do. His genius and extraordinary designs will live on forever, continuing to bring beauty into this world."

Over a career spanning more than six decades, Mackie dressed generations of stars from Bette Midler to Taylor Swift. Some of his designs became as famous as the performers who wore them, such as Marilyn Monroe's risqué, rhinestone-encrusted sheath dress worn while singing to President John F. Kennedy in 1962 (which he sketched for his employer, French designer Jean Louis), and Cher's jet-black, bondage-inspired ensemble topped with a feathered Mohawk headdress at the 1986 Oscars.

"The way you dress is your way of telegraphing to the person that's looking at you, who you are and where you're coming from," Mackie told NPR in 1990.

Cher and Bob Mackie attend the premiere of "Bob Mackie: Naked Illusion" in 2024 in Los Angeles. The pair enjoyed a long performer-designer partnership.

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While Mackie was celebrated as a haute couture designer, he was far more passionate about crafting one-of-a-kind looks for entertainers. "I think there are people who design runway fashion who say they're like telling a story. No, they're not. They're just making a cute frock and hope somebody buys it," he told the NPR-distributed podcast Bullseye with Jesse Thorn in 2025.

Growing up in Southern California, Mackie's fascination with glamour came from Hollywood, not high fashion. "I never looked in a fashion magazine when I was a kid. But I looked in all the movie magazines and theater magazines," he said on Bullseye. "That was more interesting to me."

Mackie dropped out of his studies at the Chouinard Art Institute — now part of California Institute of the Arts — when he was spotted by the legendary designer Edith Head and landed a job sketching for Paramount Studios in 1961. His career quickly took off, and he forged lasting relationships with such entertainment royalty as Whitney Houston, Bette Midler, Tina Turner, Diana Ross and Carol Burnett.

For The Carol Burnett Show, which started in the late 1960s and ran for more than a decade, Mackie designed an estimated 17,000 costumes — about 50 per week. One of his most famous creations was the outrageous dress for Burnett's 1976 Gone With The Wind parody where she appeared as "Starlett O'Hara" wearing a green velvet dress made from curtains — with the curtain rod still attached. That dress now resides in the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History.

"Not all of our sketches were gems. Some were bombs," Burnett recalled in a 2003 Fresh Air interview. "Sometimes he would put me in stuff that would literally save the sketch."

Perhaps nothing captured Mackie's theatrical sensibility more than the ludicrous Donald Duck costume — complete with webbed booties and oversized rear end — that Elton John wore while performing at a 1980 concert in New York's Central Park.

"It was very difficult for me to play the piano, plus the fact I'd never walked in flippers before," John reminisced in Who Is Mackie?, a short film about the designer. "I was dancing across the stage, falling over myself, and I just couldn't sing for laughing – because it looked ridiculous, but it looked fabulous."

Miley Cyrus in Bob Mackie as she performs onstage in 2024 at the 66th GRAMMY Awards in Los Angeles.

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Mackie continued dressing major 21st-century stars such as Miley Cyrus, Zendaya and Pink. He also collaborated with Mattel on a line of Barbie dolls. His awards included nine Emmys, a Tony Award, three Oscar nominations, and lifetime achievement awards from the Council of Fashion Designers of America and RuPaul's Drag Race. He had served as the show's first guest host and jokingly referred to himself in some media interviews as "the patron saint of drag queens."

"I know exactly which outfits he did because there is a rhythm and a movement and a choice of proportions of color that no one else does like that," RuPaul said in the 2024 documentary Bob Mackie: Naked Illusion. "That's how you know that someone is channeling the divine."
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