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A Mick Garris zombie costume from Michael Jackson's Thriller
US$10,000 - US$15,000
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A Mick Garris zombie costume from Michael Jackson's Thriller
Footnotes
When the King of Pop, Michael Jackson, began to formulate the idea behind a video for his song, Thriller, from the record-breaking 1982 album of the same name, his first choice for director was John Landis, whose production of An American Werewolf in London (1981) Jackson admired. His simple request to Landis: "Can we do something where I turn into a monster?" Thus commenced the making of the most iconic music video in history. Makeup genius Rick Baker created the makeup and prosthetics, and costume designers Kelly Kimball and Deborah Nadoolman Landis crafted the sinister costumes worn by the corpses who "terrorize your neighborhood." Deborah went to dance rehearsals to get a feel for how to design what she called, "zombie rags." She searched vintage clothing stores to find just the right pieces, including hats and shoes, and then properly distressed them to look like creepy, crawly garments which had been rotting on corpses for decades. The costumes offered here were used for the closeup zombie shots in the graveyard and in the scene where Jackson breaks into the house; hence, they are more detailed in materials such as lace, pearls, dead leaves, and spider webs. The 14-minute video had its world premiere on MTV and became a landmark in popular music and culture. Sales for the album, which had been released a whole year earlier, doubled. In 2009, it became the first music video to be inducted into the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress; currently, it is still the only one so selected. According to Cynthia Garris, "I had a wonderful three days working on the video and never knew back then that it would go on to be the all-time most loved [video.]" The original 1982 Thriller album still stands as the second best-selling album in American history. For John Landis, the video was a labor of love, for it featured Jackson at his peak: "It was a real celebration of Mike. It's just joyous."
Provenance: Mick and Cynthia Garris




















