Dedication

The tenth edition of Stage Makeup is dedicated to the life and career of author, makeup artist, and
teacher, Richard Corson.

It is not often that avocation and vocation come together. Richard Corson was one of those fortunates who achieved that happy state while still a student.

As a youngster he showed talent in sketching, drawing, and painting, and in school he developed a passionate interest in all things theatrical. He acted and directed and even had some of his one-act plays published. Dissatisfied with the state of stage makeup, which was often crude and amateurish, he put his artistic skills to use and developed a number of relatively simple techniques, which noticeably improved the craft.

A Phi Beta Kappa student at DePauw and Louisiana State Universities, he chose his interest in makeup as the subject of his Master’s thesis. This innovative work became the first edition of his first book, Stage Makeup.

Immediately in demand as a teacher, Corson used classwork to hone his techniques. He became fascinated with new products and experimented with them, and the new techniques he devised led to subsequent editions.

Because hair style and wigs, beards and mustaches were integral to a complete makeup, Corson created an appendix of sketches of hair styles through the years to guide the actor. The sketches caught the eye of the distinguished British publishing house, Peter Owen Ltd., which commissioned an expanded version, a handbook to accompany Stage Makeup. There seemed to be no such sourcebook available, but no one, least of all Corson, anticipated the wealth of material to be explored.

Corson’s insatiable curiosity led him to museums, galleries, theaters, and libraries throughout the Western hemisphere, where he found more and more material on the styles of the past, as well as the extraordinary and sometimes perilous means of achieving them. The handbook became a tome, Fashions in Hair: The First Five Thousand Years, the bible of hairdressers, stylists, and designers throughout the industry. Further explorations led to Fashions in Eyeglasses, which has been published in Japanese as well as English.

Corson’s writing, however, never superseded teaching. Regular classwork gave way to seminars, workshops, and periodic engagements at major universities: Southern Methodist University, the University of Southern California at Long Beach, and the University of Minnesota, among others.

Later he embarked on a solo lecture demonstration, “An Actor Makes Up,” which toured coast to coast for several years. This grew into a two-person program with more difficult and elaborate makeup demonstrations and complete scenes to accompany them. Always stressing his thesis that a makeup should not be simply a painted mask but rather an integral part of an actor’s performance, each demonstration culminated in a real scene, such as the duel from Cyrano de Bergerac, a confrontation from Merchant of Venice, a comedic encounter from The Importance of Being Earnest.

Corson put touring on hold for three years in the 1950s to direct a program in New York City to train technicians for careers as makeup artists. Graduates went on to become prominent in television, ballet, and opera.

Although Corson rarely worked as a makeup artist per se, he occasionally designed a production and supervised its execution. His credits include The Passion of Joseph D. with Peter Falk as Stalin, Tony Richardson’s production of Arturo Ui, starring Christopher Plummer, and Stella Adler’s production of Johnny Johnson. Individual actors frequently consulted him about specific makeup problems.

Throughout his career, Corson remained steadfast in his belief in the individuality of the actor and his performance: that there be no one Hamlet, Shylock, or Cyrano “look,” and that clichéd makeup is as abhorrent as a clichéd performance. He maintained that each actor should be as original in his appearance as in his characterization, thus making for an ever richer and more rewarding theater experience.

Richard Corson died on January 13, 1999. This tenth edition of Stage Makeup—compiled with the assistance of his colleagues and friends—will stand as a memorial to his career and his many accomplishments.

Mitchell Ericson