Jean-Pierre Dorléac Dies: Emmy-Winning ‘Battlestar Galactica’ & ‘Somewhere In Time’ Costume Designer Was 83
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- Jean-Pierre Dorléac died July 23 of natural causes at his Hollywood Hills home at age 83, according to a family spokesperson who confirmed the news to The Hollywood Reporter.
- Dorléac won two Emmy Awards — his first for the 1978 series Battlestar Galactica and his second for the 1999-2001 Hollywood-set drama The Lot — across 11 total Emmy nominations that included five for Quantum Leap.
- Dorléac received an Oscar nomination for his costume design on the 1980 time-travel romance Somewhere in Time starring Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour, and also dressed the cast of that year's The Blue Lagoon with Brooke Shields and Christopher Atkins.
- Born April 12, 1943, in Toulon, France, Dorléac trained at the École des Beaux-Arts before relocating to the US, where he launched his career in Los Angeles theater with a 1973 staging of Marat/Sade.
- Dorléac's credits spanned Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, The Bastard, Jacqueline Susann's Valley of the Dolls, and the 2004 WWII drama In Enemy Hands; he later wrote the 2005 novel Abracabra Alakazama and a 2015 memoir, The Naked Truth.
- Dorléac is survived by spouse Gilberto Mello.
Why it matters: Dorléac's death closes a career that bridged French training at the École des Beaux-Arts to genre-defining Hollywood wardrobe across Battlestar Galactica, Quantum Leap, and Somewhere in Time — 11 Emmy nominations, two wins, and one Oscar nod for a designer whose costumes became the visual shorthand for 1970s–2000s sci-fi and period drama.
