Getting Bowser Ready for His Close-Up

Cynics know that “natural beauty” isn’t all that easy for people to come by. Turns out, as far as Hollywood is concerned, the animal kingdom is ripe for tweaking as well. Today, there is a whole cadre of entertainment makeup artists and wardrobers for our fine feathered (and furred) friends.

Initially schooled as a dog groomer, Rose Ordile enjoys her life as an animal trainer but has a jumping side specialty as an animal colorist and makeup artist. Using greasepaint and water-based non-toxic hair coloring paints, Ordile has enhanced or done dye jobs on dogs, cats, horses and birds.

“Animals have to always have doubles, or sometimes triples or quadruples,” she says, “because an individual animal will only exhibit a limited number of behaviors. So, if you have a script where a cat runs around and then goes to sleep, you’ll probably have to cast two cats. Makeup enables you to make the secondary cat look like the hero animal.”

In addition, Ordile has “aged” animals, put undereye concealer on dark dogs so their expressions would show, brightened bird feathers and turned a bulldog bright red.

“The animals don’t mind any of this in the least,” Ordile reports, “they just think they’re getting a massage.”

Pat Naderhoff didn’t get into costume design with the intention of putting pigs in tutus, chimps in bikinis or llamas in pajamas, but it’s worked out that way. In addition to being one of Hollywood’s busiest costume designers for concerts, film, television, commercials and video (count Donna Summer and Aerosmith as two of her regulars), she’s carved out a niche doing animal outfits for the Kidsongs children’s video series for the last 13 years.

Naderhoff has learned many valuable tricks of the trade, from leaving plenty of diaper room in chimp costumes to making three sets of everything in case of “accidents.” For crafting animalwear, she counts her most valuable tools as “patience, elastic and lots of Velcro.”

As for working with non-human performers, Naderhoff says, “Oh, animals are better. They’re so well trained and they listen to you.”