Costume designer Jean-Pierre Dorléac is speaking candidly about some of the most challenging celebrities he says he encountered during his decades-long career in Hollywood.
In an interview with the Daily Mail, Dorléac claimed that several well-known actors — including Kirstie Alley, Shannen Doherty and Patrick Macnee — were among the most difficult people he worked with.
Reflecting on his experience with Alley, the late star of the TV show Cheers, Dorléac described her behavior on set as problematic.
“Kirstie was very crude and very brassy and coarse, irresponsible, never on time — a mess, a constant mess,” he said.
Dorléac added that the wardrobe team often had to deal with extra work while she was filming the television series Masquerade alongside Rod Taylor.
“We had to clean her uniform constantly,” he said. “She was supposed to be a travel agent in the series, and she sweated so badly because she drank.”
Famed costume designer Jean-Pierre Dorléac, pictured above beside mannequins at the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Best Costume Nominees Exhibition, revealed in a Daily Mail interview which celebrities gave him the most trouble on set.
He described the late Kirstie Alley, pictured above, as “very crude and very brassy and coarse, irresponsible, never on time,” and “a constant mess.”
Dorléac recalled a memorable wardrobe mishap involving a $350 pearl pink angora sweater dress he had made for Alley. The designer said it was ruined just minutes before a key scene.
“It was a stunning piece for a scene where she had a major line, and about three minutes before she did it, she went to the craft table and picked up a huge chocolate donut, which she supposedly dropped down the front of her dress,” he explained.
“There was nothing but this big streak of chocolate from her chest down to her belly button,” he added, noting that the dress ultimately had to be discarded.
According to Dorléac, this was not an isolated incident. Alley, who publicly struggled with her weight for years and passed away at 71 in 2022, often repeated similar mishaps.
“She did that over and over again, plus she was constantly gaining weight, and she was always rude,” he said.
In one memorable incident, Dorléac said the late Kirstie Alley, shown above in a promotional photo for Masquerade, ruined a $350 costume by accidentally dropping a chocolate donut down the front of her dress.
Dorléac, seen above holding a cat, recalled of the late Kirstie Alley: “She did that over and over again, plus she was constantly gaining weight, and she was always rude.”
The designer also shared a less-than-flattering experience with the late Shannen Doherty, whom he worked with on her 1994 TV movie, A Burning Passion.
“I did her this blue suit,” Dorléac said. “I always go to the set to establish the costume before it’s shot and make certain everything is right. I said, ‘Oh, Shannen, it just turned out so wonderful.’”
“She replied, ‘Yeah, they are, aren’t they?’” he recalled.
The next day, Dorléac dressed Doherty in a tan outfit paired with a cream-colored hat—but noticed a striking difference in her eye color.
“Her eyes appeared brown,” he said. “Then the following day, she’s in another outfit, and her eyes were a vivid green—almost cat green—not the hazel-y green she originally had or mine were.”
The designer also criticized Shannen Doherty, pictured above speaking at a MegaCon Orlando 2024 Q&A session, describing her as “very unhappy.”
While working on the TV movie A Burning Passion: The Margaret Mitchell Story (seen above), Dorléac claimed that Shannen Doherty delivered an expletive-laden tirade at him.
The designer said he had asked Doherty how she was able to change her eye color so frequently, which prompted a sharp response.
“She answered, ‘Just I’ll keep your f–king mouth shut. I’m doing this.’ I said, ‘What are you talking about?’” he recalled.
“She said, ‘I hate this goddamn movie, and I don’t want to play this Margaret Mitchell. Jesus! Who wants to play an old cripple like Margaret Mitchell?’”
Dorléac added that Doherty clashed with the movie’s producer, Renée Valente, and reportedly altered her eye color intentionally “to throw the film off.”
“She was a very unhappy girl,” he said of Doherty, who passed away from cancer at 53 in 2024. “She smoked constantly, ate hardly anything. She was so tiny and thin.”
He also noted her colorful language: “She swore like a workman. I mean, I’ve never seen anybody with a filthier mouth than she did.”
“She says, ‘I hate this goddamn movie, and I don’t want to play this Margaret Mitchell. Jesus! Who wants to play an old cripple like Margaret Mitchell?’” Dorlèac claimed Doherty said.
Dorléac noted of Shannen Doherty, seen above, that “she smoked constantly, she ate hardly anything. She was so tiny and thin.”
He also singled out Patrick Macnee, calling the late actor a “major a–hole” over an alleged sexual assault in 1978.
The designer said he was dressing Macnee for a guest role on Battlestar Galactica when the actor allegedly made an inappropriate advance.
“He started taking off his clothes and said, ‘I just don’t know how to thank you for making this for me…,’” Dorléac recalled.
“He got down to his shorts, his underwear, and I’m alone with him. He came close, pulled them down, and started shaking himself,” Dorléac said, adding that Macnee asked him to join in. The designer refused.
The incident reportedly ended a few minutes later when a tailor arrived to trim the costume.
Dorléac claimed that Patrick Macnee, pictured above in The Avengers, made an inappropriate pass at him while they were working on Battlestar Galactica.
“He struggled to pull up his pants, put on the suit, and he was pissed as hell,” Dorléac recalled. “He just pouted all the way through the fitting.”
The designer added that Macnee’s costume was later mysteriously cut to shreds, forcing the studio to spend $6,000 on a replacement suit and emergency tailoring.
“He was just a major a–hole, never spoke to me again, and they never hired him to work at Universal ever again,” Dorléac said.
Representatives for the estates of Shannen Doherty and Kirstie Alley did not immediately respond to Page Six’s requests for comment. A representative for Macnee’s estate could not be reached.
