Ret Turner, an Emmy Award-winning costume designer who worked with many of television's biggest stars in the 1970s and '80s, including Lucille Ball, Perry Como, Carol Burnett, Andy Williams and Cher, died on Wednesday at his home in West Hollywood, Calif. He was 87 and the oldest working member of the Costume Designers Guild.
His death was confirmed by his niece and closest survivor, Jean Drufner, who said a cause had not yet been determined.
Ret Turner with Cher in 1992. State Archives of Florida
Mr. Turner was introduced to fashion when he was 7 and worked after school in his parents' clothing store in Florida. He became stage-struck in college productions, acted in summer stock and headed to Hollywood in 1950 hoping to find work as an actor. Instead, after a stint with a small theater company, he was steered to the wardrobe department at NBC, which he later managed.
He eventually partnered with two other designers whose fashions had become famous on red carpets and on television and film screens, Bob Mackie and Ray Aghayan, and went on to design for "The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour," "The Donny and Marie Show," "Mama's Family" and the Carol Burnett series "Carol & Company," as well as Dolly Parton, Diana Ross, Dinah Shore and the Kennedy Center's 25th-anniversary show in 1996.
Mr. Turner, Mr. Mackie and Mr. Aghayan worked for Elizabeth Courtney Costumes, which later became known as Ret Turner Costume Rentals and closed a few months ago.
In 1986, Mr. Turner went to Cher's home to dress her in a head-turning outfit designed by Mr. Mackie - a revealing beaded black gown and towering headgear fabricated from 800 rooster feathers - which she wore when she presented Don Ameche with his best supporting actor Oscar for "Cocoon."
"It certainly created a stir," Mr. Turner recalled in a 2003 interview with the Television Academy Foundation's Archive of American Television. "Don Ameche said, 'I would never have been photographed getting my Oscar if it had not have been Cher standing next to me.'"