Charles "Chuck" Keehne was an American costume designer, who worked on film and television productions for Disney.
Early years
Keehne was born in St. Louis, Missouri, the middle child of four boys and one girl belonging to William, a railroad telegrapher, and Mae Keehne and the family moved around the state because of his father's job. After graduating from high school, Chuck moved to California, where he first found work building movie sets before being hired by Western Costume Co. as a costumer and becoming an expert on historical dress and costuming. In early 1940's, Keehne began freelancing for films The Fighting 69th, Knute Rockne, All American, Yankee Doodle Dandy, Captain from Castile, and Fort Apache. His career was interrupted by a hitch in the Army Air Corps during World War II, where he served as a combat cameraman in the Pacific Theatre. After his discharge in 1946, he returned to the film business.
Career with Disney
In 1955, he was made Chief of the Wardrobe Department at Disney. Up to that time, Walt Disney didn't have a Wardrobe Department. Most of Walt's early live-action attempts included usually one-and-done costumers, such as Mary Wills (Song of the South), Sheila Graham (Treasure Island), Michael Whittaker and Yvonne Caffin (The Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men), Phyllis Dalton (Rob Roy, the Highland Rogue), Fred Valles (The Sword and the Rose), and Norman Martien (20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier). With the rise of his live-action film and television ventures, the wardrobe department was established with Keehne running the operation himself with assistants Ted Towey and Gertie Casey.
His first assignment was to create costumes for the studio's new children's show, Mickey Mouse Club, where he came up with the final design for the famous "ears" on the Mouseketeers' caps, which transcended beyond the show as popular Disney merchandise. He soon began to work on other television productions, such as the Mouse Club serials, Zorro and the Disneyland anthology series. Eventually, he found and his department worked on films, such as Westward Ho, the Wagons!, Old Yeller, The Parent Trap, Mary Poppins, Bedknobs and Broomsticks, Freaky Friday, and Pete's Dragon.
Keehne stayed as head of Disney's Wardrobe Department until his retirement in 1979 with more than 70 feature films under his belt. He died in Los Angeles, California on February 24, 2001.
Filmography
Gallery
Trivia
- According to Keehne's daughter, Bill Walsh, Hal Adelquist, and Roy Williams all worked together with her father on the mouse ears. The early versions were too large and looked ungainly, nor would they stay on when the kids danced or moved quickly. Eventually the team devised small hand-crafted caps with wire-reinforced felt ears and rubber-bands that fit under the chin to hold them on, each one tailored to an individual Mouseketeer. They were time-consuming to make, and each cap contained $20 worth of high-quality felt, and cost an additional $5 to make. Mouseketeers were fined $50 for every cap that went missing.
