Marjorie O. Best; Movie Costume Designer Won Academy Award

Marjorie O. Best, Hollywood costume designer who won an Academy Award in 1949 for outfitting the characters in “The Adventures of Don Juan,” has died. She was 94.

Best, who was nominated for three other Oscars, died Saturday in her Toluca Lake home.

Her first costuming assignment was in 1943 for “The Nun’s Story.” She earned Oscar nominations in 1956 for “Giant,” in 1960 for “Sunrise at Campobello” and in 1965 for “The Greatest Story Ever Told.”

A native of Jacksonville, Ill., Best moved to Los Angeles with her parents as a young woman. She studied at the Chouinard School of Art, where she later taught, and worked at United Costume Co.

She segued into films in 1943 when Warner Brothers bought United Costume Co. and offered her a job in its wardrobe department.

Best was prolific in turning out designs for period films and Westerns. Among the films for which she clothed the cast were “Rio Bravo” starring John Wayne in 1959, “The Dark at the Top of the Stairs” in 1960, “The Sins of Rachel Cade” in 1961, “State Fair” in 1962 and “Spencer’s Mountain” in 1963.

She was active in the Costume Designers Guild and the Costume Council of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and was a past officer of the Friday Morning Club.

Any memorial donations can be sent to the Braille Institute or to the American Heart Assn.