Biography
May Routh (also credited as Ida May Routh) was a British-American costume designer. Born in Jabalpur, British India, in 1934, she studied dress design and fashion at Saint Martin's School of Art in London. She began her career as a fashion illustrator, with work appearing in Vogue and Elle, before moving into film as an assistant costume designer on Oh! What a Lovely War (1969).
Her first credit as lead costume designer came on The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976). Subsequent credits include Being There (1979), My Favorite Year (1982), Splash (1984), Newsies (1992) and Ronin (1998). She collaborated frequently with director John Frankenheimer on projects including Andersonville (1996), George Wallace (1997) and Reindeer Games (2000). Routh received Primetime Emmy Award nominations for her work on Lucy & Desi: Before the Laughter (1991) and Andersonville. She married production designer Brian Eatwell in 1983 and died in Los Angeles in 2022.
