Vitals

Kurt Russell as Drew Stephens, mechanic and former nuclear plant technician

Oklahoma, Fall 1974

Film: Silkwood
Release Date: December 14, 1983
Director: Mike Nichols
Costume Designer: Ann Roth

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Fifty years ago tonight, chemical technician and labor activist Karen Silkwood died in a mysterious car accident near Crescent, Oklahoma. Silkwood had recently testified to the Atomic Energy Commission about safety concerns at the Kerr-McGee Corporation plant where she worked and was subsequently found to be contaminated with plutonium.

On the evening of November 13, 1974, the 28-year-old Silkwood was en route to meet a journalist from the New York Times and her national union representative when her white 1973 Honda Civic crashed into the wall of a concrete culvert off Highway 74, and she was pronounced dead at the scene. Contemporary findings strongly suggested foul play, though it was more likely that her pursuer’s intent was to intimidate Silkwood rather than to kill her.

The tumultuous last year of Karen Silkwood’s life was depicted in Mike Nichols’ 1983 drama Silkwood, starring Meryl Streep as the titular technician, Cher as her co-worker and roommate, and Kurt Russell as her boyfriend and fellow Kerr-McGee colleague Drew Stephens. The film received five Academy Award nominations, including for Nichols, Streep, and Cher, as well as Sam O’Steen’s editing and Nora Ephron and Alice Arlen’s original screenplay.

Drew Stephens himself would later die in a transportation-related accident when the 45-year-old crashed his plane in June 1995 while practicing maneuvers at the El Reno Municipal Air Park ahead of an upcoming competition.

What’d He Wear?

As Drew Stephens, Kurt Russell cycles through a rotation of hardy, western-informed casual attire appropriate for a blue-collar king who lives and works in rural Oklahoma—though Gene Triplett reported in The Oklahoman at the time of Silkwood‘s release in late 1983 that the actual Drew “doesn’t look like anti-establishment movie material… relaxing in his wood-paneled Oklahoma City office with his feet propped on his desk, the real Stephens looked every inch the prosperous small-businessman well-barbered and neatly attired in V-neck sweater, tie and slacks.”

The A-2 Deck Jacket

I haven’t read any accounts of the real Drew Stephens—including contemporary interviews and obituaries—that suggest military service, though costume designer Ann Roth frequently dresses Kurt Russell in an A-2 deck jacket, issued by the U.S. Navy through the Vietnam War era. This rugged outerwear shares its nomenclature, but little else, with the iconic leather A-2 flight jacket issued by the U.S. Army Air Forces during World War II.

The Navy introduced these A-2 jackets in the 1960s, initially in the same corded “jungle cloth” as its N-1 predecessor before switching to a weatherproof 50/50 blend of cotton and nylon in the military’s standard shade of olive green 107 (OG-107) that crafts a look at the intersection of deck jackets and field gear. The drab wool blanketed lining ensures warmth, and the straight-zip front is reinforced with an extended five-button storm flap.

The patch-style breast pocket has a rectangular flap that closes through a single olive-painted snap, and there are two side-entry hand pockets with gently slanted welt openings. These hip-length jackets have an open hem, albeit with short buckle-adjuster tabs on each side to cinch how it fits around the wearer’s waist and combat updrafts. The set-in sleeves are left plain at the ends, which cover the ribbed knitted wool cuffs gripping each wrist.

When I first noticed Russell wearing an A-2 in Silkwood, I leapt at the opportunity to finally write about one of my favorite pieces of military outerwear for BAMF Style. I was lucky enough to score my own A-2 deck jacket from the secondhand shop Boheme Pittsburgh last spring, and it has become one of my favorite go-to coats for colder weather through the fall and winter.

Drew’s Shirts

Drew debuts the deck jacket on the night he reveals to Karen that he quit his job at Kerr-McGee following her return from D.C. He wears it over one of his usual western-styled snap-front shirts, made from a brushed cotton flannel in a white, navy, and gold block-checked plaid. The shirt has a point collar, snap-up front placket, two chest pockets with pointed bottoms and pointed single-snap flaps, and snap-fastened cuffs. He tucks it into khaki cotton flat-front trousers rather than his usual blue jeans.

The evening led to Drew and Karen breaking up as he pursued his career as a mechanic. Several months later, she calls him for assistance to tow her crashed Civic out of a ditch. The brief scene depicting Drew’s arrival shows him wearing the jacket over a similarly styled and colored shirt, albeit in a different plaid pattern. (Indeed, Drew’s closet includes at least four different snap-front shirts in varying white, blue, and beige check patterns.)

Following Karen’s second plutonium contamination, Drew returns to their one-time house only to find it has been totally emptied by Kerr-McGee, whose sinister representative Winston (Craig T. Nelson) is “just looking around, like you.” After Drew knocks Winston to the ground, he speeds home in his red Pontiac LeMans to find Karen waiting at his repair shop and assures her that he’ll take her to Los Alamos for a more in-depth examination.

Through this encounter, he wears a pale blue-gray cotton shirt with fraying edges and contrasting dark-blue plastic buttons up the front placket. The long-sleeved shirt also has a spread collar, button cuffs, and two chest pockets with single-button flaps.

Everything Else

Aside from the khakis he wears when introducing the deck jacket, Drew almost exclusively wears Lee Rider jeans in a rich medium blue denim wash, styled in the classic five-pocket configuration with curved front pockets, inset coin/watch pocket on the right side, and two back pockets with Lee’s signature “lazy S” stitch and branded black patch along the upper back-right pocket.

Drew holds his jeans up with an edge-stitched brown tooled leather belt that closes through a rectangular brass belt buckle embossed “OKC”—representing Oklahoma City, located just 40 miles south of Crescent. He loops a brown leather sheath for his folding pocket knife on the right side of his belt, covered by a single-snap flap. The belt leather coordinates with his well-worn brown leather pointed-toe cowboy boots.

Drew always wears the same stainless steel wristwatch with its white “pie-pan” dial and silver non-numeric hour indices. The watch is affixed to an expanding sterling silver bracelet with turquoise nuggets mounted near where it flanks the case, similar to Karen’s own turquoise-plated watchband.

What to Imbibe

Upon returning home with Karen from Quincy’s house, the frustrated Drew immediately pulls a fifth of Jim Beam bourbon whiskey from the kitchen cabinet and sits out back to take pulls straight from the bottle. “Thinkin’, drinkin’,” Karen observes of his behavior after asking what he was doing out there.

Otherwise, Drew is the beer drinker you’d expect, typically opting for cans of Coors Banquet though he and Karen also throw back cans of Budweiser when reviewing her D.C. trip slides.

How to Get the Look

Drew Stephens demonstrates rugged and practical masculinity with his sartorial balance of military and western workwear, from his olive-drab U.S. Navy deck jacket and chambray shirt to blue jeans, an oversized belt buckle, worn-in cowboy boots, and a touch of turquoise on his watchband.

• Olive-green (OG-107) cotton/nylon U.S. Navy-issued A-2 deck jacket with straight-zip/5-button front, patch breast pocket with single-snap rectangular flap, gently slanted hand pockets, extended set-in sleeves over ribbed-knit cuffs, and buckle-tab side adjusters
• Pale-blue cotton long-sleeved work shirt with spread collar, front placket, two chest pockets (with button-down flaps), and single-button cuffs
• Blue denim Lee Rider zip-fly jeans
• Brown tooled leather belt with brass “OKC” belt buckle
• Brown leather knife sheath with single-snap flap
• Brown leather pointed-toe cowboy boots
• Stainless steel wristwatch with white “pie-pan” dial and turquoise-studded sterling silver expanding bracelet

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

The Quote

Don’t give me a problem I can’t solve.