Tagged: Real Men Wear Pink
Casino – De Niro Wears Pink for a Car Bombing
Vitals
Robert De Niro as Sam “Ace” Rothstein, Vegas casino manager and mob associate
Las Vegas, October 1982
Film: Casino
Release Date: November 22, 1995
Director: Martin Scorsese
Costume Design: Rita Ryack & John A. Dunn
Background
Anyone standing outside Tony Roma’s restaurant on the Las Vegas Strip 31 years ago today would be in for years of ringing ears. On the morning of October 4, 1982, ousted casino manager, fringe mob associate, and gambler extraordinaire Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal left the restaurant and headed for his car, a silver 1981 Cadillac Eldorado coupe with the distinctive V8-6-4 engine, the failed experiment that only last one year. In this case, the failed experiment saved Rosenthal’s life as an extra metal sheet placed under the driver’s seat to offset the weight of this engine protected him from the initial blast of a devastating car bomb placed on his Cadillac. Continue reading
Real Men Wear Pink: Redford as Gatsby

Robert Redford as Jay Gatsby in the 1974 adaptation of The Great Gatsby. The little girl on his left is Patsy Kensit, who would later play Mel Gibson’s ill-fated love interest in Lethal Weapon 2.
Vitals
Robert Redford as Jay Gatsby, enigmatic millionaire and eager romantic
Long Island, New York, Late Summer 1925
Film: The Great Gatsby
Release Date: March 29, 1974
Director: Jack Clayton
Costume Designer: Theoni V. Aldredge
Clothes by: Ralph Lauren
Background
Today is the day that Baz Luhrmann is releasing his interpretation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s great American novel The Great Gatsby. Saving any comment on that for the end, it only seems appropriate to look at some of the iconic suits that Robert Redford donned for his portrayal of Gatsby almost forty years ago.
By the early to mid 1970s, men’s suits were beginning to revert back to styles popular during the height of the Roaring Twenties: bright three-piece suits with wide lapels, double-breasted waistcoats, and flared legs. Some credit the fact the coke-and-disco fueled ’70s were a replication of the booze-and-jazz fueled ’20s and that the style would naturally gravitate towards excess. Others point to the award-winning costumes made by Theoni V. Aldredge for 1974’s The Great Gatsby. Continue reading