RESIDENTS: Paul duPont

 Today, we welcome back the residents of note column with Paul duPont, famed costume designer of the '50s and resident of No. 5.      

Paul duPont, 1955

Born in 1906, he was a budding ballet dancer when a fall through an open trap door resulted in a broken back and two years recuperation. He tried his luck in fashion, opening a shop in Paris, but this failed.

Then, back in the States, he fell in with Helen Hayes who convinced him to move to New York City and join the Group Theater. Around the same time, he also accepted a job offer from Eaves Costume, where he would work for the rest of his life.

Ultimately, he produced costumes for 64 Broadway shows, three ballets, one opera, and one Ice Capades. And that was just a warm-up to his television work, starting when he signed as costume designer for "Your Show of Shows," then signing with producer Max Liebman to design the costumes for his lavish spectaculars.

Life magazine ran pictures taken by duPont of an Eaves Costume party; Time pronounced him television's top costume designer. Everything was fine ‒ except for the small medicine cabinet he always carried around with him containing "aspirin, empirin, dysoxin, phenobarbital (to calm myself down) and dexedrine (to pep myself up)."

TV Guide article, 1955

The Sunday Star (Washington, DC) photo, 1955

The picture above is that of his Tudor City home. One glance at its windows confirmed it was one of No.5's penthouses.

In 1957, his life took an ominous turn. First, a broken leg, then an extended, unexplained hospital stay. His last appearance in print was a one-line item in Dorothy Kilgallen's column, The Voice of Broadway, running on April 17, 1957: 

It is rather astonishing, first for being "thrown out" of a dressing room, followed by being "assaulted for the first time in my career." But that's the end of this part of the story; his assaulter was never revealed.

Then, three days later, Paul duPont was dead, aged 51. This was confirmed by his hometown paper, the Pensacola News-Journal. He died of a heart attack at Lenox Hill hospital, the obituary read. There was no mention of Kilgallen's item. . . nor of the small medicine cabinet that duPont always kept nearby.