Tony Duquette was born on June 11th and died at the age of 85 in 1999. He was best known for his over-the-top style in set, interior and jewelry design. His long-time business partner said this upon his death - "He was the only man who could spend $999 in a 99-cent store."
In his Hollywood Hills Studio, a roomful of 18th century
French Antiques sat amid gilded trees beneath a ceiling studded with glued-on
gold plastic serving trays. His talent
for overdoing it was appreciated by clients who had acquired their own sense of
the grandiose, among them Vincente Minnelli, Doris Duke, Mary Pickford, J. Paul
Getty, David O. Selznick and the Duchess of Windsor.
He was born in Los Angeles, the oldest of four children. He was very artistic from an early age. He entertained his siblings with a puppet show of "Schederazade," making all the costumes himself. The toy houses he built were romantically lit with birthday candles. After attending the Chouinard Art Institute he worked first as a designer for Bullock's Department Store and then as a freelance for Hollywood designers Billy Haines and James Pendleton.
Mr. Duquette liked to say that he was discovered by Lady Mendl (who had become famous as an interior decorator as Elsie de Wolfe) when, in her 80's, she decamped from her villa in France to a villa in Los Angeles to avoid the war.
''I want you to make me a meuble,'' Lady Mendl commanded, putting the word ''furniture'' into French, after admiring a jewel-bedecked plaster and glass centerpiece that Mr. Duquette had designed for a dinner party.
Impressed with the result, a black-lacquered secretary with Moors set against a mirrored background festooned with Venetian glass flowers, she began to promote her new discovery to clients, friends and influential editors. Their collaboration lasted until her death, in 1951. Mr. Duquette became president of the Elsie de Wolfe Foundation and at the time of his death he was organizing an auction of the foundation's Elsie de Wolfe collections, to be held at Christie's in Los Angeles next week.
Excerpts from NYTimes Obituary, September 14, 1999
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