What, This Old Thing?
Few of us stop to think about how much behind-the-scenes work goes into the reality television programming we gorge ourselves on every night — maybe we’re too busy wiping the drool from our chins — but that doesn’t mean nobody’s noticing.
On July 6, Dana Campbell, a freelance costume designer who splits time between Charleston and Los Angeles, learned that she’s won a Prime Time Emmy Award for “Outstanding Costumes for a Variety or Musical Program” for her work this season with ABC‘s interactive show Dancing With the Stars.“I used to work in Charleston a lot when they used to film movies here,” says Campbell, “But they haven’t made enough movies here to make a living out of it in about 12 years, so I moved to Los Angeles about 10 years ago.”In addition to her confirmed win, Campbell was also nominated in two additional categories, one for “Outstanding Costumes in a Miniseries” and another for “Outstanding Costumes in a Movie or Special.” Campbell won’t find out if she has won in these categories until the awards ceremony on August 16. Campbell says she and her team spent about eight weeks working on the costumes for Dancing With the Stars, which airs Thursday nights at 8 p.m. What, you thought contestants just pulled out any old dress from their closet?Campbell has been working with costumes for over 20 years on projects ranging from a Hallmark special about Blackbeard to HBO’s Def Comedy Jam. She’s also currently working on the costumes for the pilot episode of a new HBO series — though for the moment she’s remaining mum about exactly what it is. —Steven Zimmerman
Hammer Time No More
He was as rarely accused of being a literary highbrow as he was of being a prancing metrosexual. S.C. native son Mickey Spillane died last week, and SCETV will honor the author and hard-boiled detective novel pioneer with a special re-broadcast of an ETV classic, Profile: Mickey Spillane, on Sat. July 22 at 7:30 p.m. Originally filmed in 1974 at Spillane’s home in Murrells Inlet, as well as some of his favorite haunts around town, the 30-minute program is an up-close-and-personal look at one of the best selling, prolific authors in the English language — the creator of the tough-talking character Mike Hammer and the author of Kiss Me Deadly, The Girl Hunters, and many other works of classic pulp fiction. —PS
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