Biography
Gwen Wakeling (born Gwendolyn Sewell) was an American costume designer who worked on more than 140 films between the mid-1920s and 1966. She began her career as an assistant to Cecil B. DeMille and later became head of costume design at Fox Film Corporation (later Twentieth Century-Fox) from 1933 to 1942. She designed the costumes for Alexander's Ragtime Band (1938).
Wakeling collaborated frequently with director John Ford on films including The Grapes of Wrath (1940) and How Green Was My Valley (1941), and created costumes for many Shirley Temple pictures in the 1930s. She received the Academy Award for Best Costume Design (colour) for Samson and Delilah (1949). Later credits include television work such as I Dream of Jeannie (1965) and stage productions. She was married to writer-director Henry J. Staudigl.
