Iconic Gowns: ‘Naked Illusion’ Reveals Bob Mackie’s Journey
Matthew Miele gets a legendary artist and Hollywood survivor to bare his soul in "Bob Mackie: Naked Illusion."
“You’ve gotta be ready to be noticed if you’re wearing Bob Mackie.” Ain’t that the truth, spoken by one who’d know, Vicki Lawrence, in the revealing new documentary about the legendary costume and fashion designer, Bob Mackie: Naked Illusion.
Directed by Matthew Miele (Always at the Carlyle), the film, available to rent or purchase on Prime, thrives on fabulous clips and sketches of Mackie’s decades-long parade of iconic creations for the likes of Cher, Diana Ross, Elton John, Tina Turner, Barbra Streisand, Mitzi Gaynor, Bette Midler, and Beyoncé, supported by candid interviews with performers and muses who have worn his sequined, beaded, and embroidered designs.
Miele presents fresh sit-downs with a few surprising subjects, as well as many of the one-name-only divas you might expect to see in a Mackie retrospective: Cher, P!nk, Elton, Miley (shown dazzling the 2024 Grammys crowd in a sizzling Mackie gown).
Lawrence wore Mackie-designed costumes every Emmy-winning week of The Carol Burnett Show, and adds great personal insight in the film, as does Burnett herself, who, apparently, didn’t know her dear friend Mackie designed Marilyn Monroe’s infamous nude-illusion “Happy Birthday, Mr. President” dress.
One thing Burnett does know, she insists, is that Bob Mackie should have an Oscar by now. She lets loose a hilarious rant about the designer, nominated for an Academy Award in 1982 for musical Pennies from Heaven, losing to the running outfits of Chariots of Fire.
“I was shocked because Carol, she didn’t know about the Marilyn Monroe dress, right?” says Miele. “Bob’s a very modest guy, and they’ve had an enduring friendship, but she didn’t know a lot about his career. And I said, ‘Yeah, you know, he probably should have been celebrated a bunch more with different awards.’
“And then she launches into [her] beef with the Academy, saying that he should have won for Pennies from Heaven. Now, I don’t know how skewed that is, because Chariots of Fire, I’m sure, has a lot more costuming than just the numbers on the shirts, right? But I thought it was humorous. And the way she delivered it was classic Carol Burnett.”
The prime interview subject, of course, is Bob Mackie, filmed usually in the company of his longtime design director Joe McFate, who also co-produced the film. Miele and his camera tagged along with Mackie, McFate, and publicist Jenelle Hamilton, for Mackie’s night out as guest of honor at the 2019 Met Gala, “Camp: Notes on Fashion.”
That star-studded evening, where Mackie was lauded as the King of Camp, forms the through-line of the film, which Miele shot and edited over three years. Yet, Naked Illusion also probes behind the celebrity and glamour to present a much more intimate side of the designer.
On some subjects — like Mackie coming out as gay while married to his high school sweetheart, or the death of his and his ex-wife’s only son, Robin — exposing such intimacy on-camera proved to be a challenge for the intensely private Mackie.
“I was having difficulty getting Bob to talk to me about this subject,” says Miele. “He would get emotional and would really shut down on camera as far as talking about his son. And Joe had told me it’s really touchy because he’s left other interviews that this subject has been brought up. I didn’t want to disrupt our relationship and our journey through this film.”
Miele did know he wanted to get personal, “because it shouldn’t be all the flash and sequins.” Yet, as he points out, “You don’t want to detour, and make it about something that he’s uncomfortable with, and then everything else goes down the drain.” So, Miele brought this discussion into the film.
“I was thinking, just as a documentary filmmaker, why don’t I document the difficulty I’m having,” Miele says. “Why don’t I go ahead and record a phone call and just lay it out there for the audience to understand, and then I’ll see if it works. I didn’t know if it was gonna work or not.”
The sequence, in which, over the phone, McFate clarifies details of Mackie’s family’s past, is gripping. We also learn the circumstances behind Mackie and his ex-wife discovering only recently they have a long-lost granddaughter, and great-granddaughters, who appear in the film.
Following Miele’s phone call with McFate, Mackie decided he would open up about his son on camera. “That conversation that Joe and Bob have on the couch later in the film, and he’s kind of revealing Robin at that point, that was all filmed only a matter of weeks before the film was released,” says Miele. “Because he finally said, ‘Okay, I’ll talk to you about it.'”
Throughout the film, Mackie has a lot to say about his artistry and work ethic, about the amazing artists he’s worked with, and the impact they collectively have had on fashion. Thoughtful and direct, he’s full of great quotes, including his line on being a perfectionist: “Nothing wrong with doing things right.”
It’s a simple notion, says Miele, but “It was very honest, and it kind of sums up what Bob’s trying to get to with his designs and his drawings, and all the materials he works with, just the soup to nuts monitoring of what goes down with a dress and how he’s so hands-on. ‘Nothing wrong with doing things right’ is kind of a great mantra for him.
“When we’re in screenings, people applaud at that line, which is amazing to hear because you don’t hear a lot of applause during a movie, but they applaud at the line, and you’re like, ‘Wow, that really hits home.'”
Bob Mackie: Naked Illusion is available on VOD to stream or purchase through Amazon Prime. Visit www.amazon.com.
Scroll down to see an assortment of Bob Mackie’s costume designs for Cher, Carol Burnett, Diana Ross, Elton John, and Marilyn Monroe.
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