Helen Rose was born on February 2, 1904, to William Bromberg and Ray Bobbs in Chicago, Illinois of German Jewish and Russian Jewish descent. She attended the
Chicago Academy of Fine Arts and then designed nightclub and stage costumes for various acts. She moved to Los Angeles in 1929, where she designed outfits for
Fanchon and Marco and later the
Ice Follies. In the early 1940s, she spent two years working for
20th Century Fox, where she designed wardrobes for musical selections. In 1943, MGM hired her in the wake of
Adrian's departure, and by the late 1940s, Rose was promoted to chief designer at the studio. In the late 1960s, Rose left the studio to open her own design business and continued to provide attire for the famed and the wealthy. She also wrote a fashion column. She wrote two books: her autobiography
Just Make Them Beautiful in 1976 and
The Glamorous World of Helen Rose. In the 1970s, Rose also staged a traveling fashion show featuring some of her MGM-designed costumes that was called "The Helen Rose Show". == Recognition ==