Legendary designer Bob Mackie talks about Cher, Barbie, 'Naked Illusion,' more

What do Cher, Carol Burnett, Miley Cyrus and Barbie have in common? All four have been dressed to thrill in outfits created by legendary designer Bob Mackie. And they all pop up in the new documentary "Bob Mackie: Naked Illusion," which is getting its Long Island premiere at Guild Hall in East Hampton on Aug. 17.

Making the event even more special will be an appearance by Mackie, 85, who will talk with writer-editor Derek C. Blasberg after the screening about his six-decade career. The movie deals mostly with Mackie's work, but also touches on his private life: His three-year marriage to showgirl Lulu Porter; the AIDS-related death of his son, Robert Gordon Mackie Jr., at 35, and Mackie's relationship with his partner, costume designer Ray Aghayan, who died in 2011.

Mackie recently chatted with Newsday by phone from Palm Springs, California, about the movie; designing costumes for "The Carol Burnett Show"; and meeting the grandchild he never knew he had.

Why did you agree to have a documentary made about you?

It's one of those things you don’t think about doing, but when someone asks you, you say “Oh, OK.” I didn’t go after it — they came after me and I thought, well that’d be fun. I think he [writer-irector Matthew Miele] did a really lovely job.

What is the most surprising thing that people are likely to learn about you from the film?

There’s some very personal things in there. I was married and I had a son and people didn’t always know that. By the time I really got started with my career, I was divorced. People like Carol didn’t even know that, and I was with her for 11 years.

And you also had a grandchild that you and your ex-wife only found out about a few years ago.

My son had a girlfriend and she had a baby that was his, but he never told me that. That was quite the shock. Neither one of us knew. Her family moved to Washington from L.A. and we didn’t know. So now I have a granddaughter and two great-granddaughters who are 16 and 12. They’re adorable and brilliantly smart, which just makes me so happy because I was never brilliant. [Laughs.]

How did you get interested in being a designer? Was it by going to the movies as a kid?

Yes. When I was a really little kid, there was no television, and the war was on. I was 5 or 6. I lived with my mother and my teenage sister and they both loved going to the movies. So they would take me along thinking, "Well, he’ll fall asleep," but I never did. My favorite movie stars then were Carmen Miranda and Betty Grable.

I can easily picture you designing those wild costumes for Carmen Miranda.

I can’t tell you how many nightclub acts I’ve done for different perfomers and they wanted to be Carmen Miranda. … I did one for Carol Burnett, I did one for Diahann Carroll, I did one for Juliet Prowse, I did one for Mitzi Gaynor.

You're probably most identified with making costumes for Cher. How did that come about?

I met her when she came to a fitting for a guest spot on "The Carol Burnett Show." I thought, "Who's that cute girl out there waiting for me?" I thought it was more Audrey Hepburn than Cher. We just liked each other a lot. It was from doing that show that she started having producers call me to do her costumes for any special she was on and everything else she was doing.

How did the idea come about for the curtain rod dress that Carol wore for her spoof of "Gone With the Wind"?

That was one fo the hardest dresses I ever designed. It was already a joke in the real movie that Scarlett wore drapes. If you're just going to hang drapes over her shoulders and that would be the dress, that’s not funny. It took me all week, practically to the day before the show, to come up with that dress by adding the curtain rod. It got the biggest laugh ever. When Carol had her 50th anniverary party for the show, that dress was on a mannequin. All these big TV stars that were her guests went up to that mannequin and had their pictures taken like it was the state fair. It was the craziest thing.

Have you visited the Hamptons before?

I have, but not a lot. It didn’t become my usual place to go. We have friends that have a house there, so we’re gong to stay there a few days.

What other projects are you working on?

We just had this Barbie convention for the 65th anniversary. Someone said to me, "You know, as a designer you’ve done more Barbies than anyone in the world, over 60." And I said "I did?" I didn’t even like Barbie when it first came out, but then I was asked to do another Barbie. … I'm doing a holiday angel Barbie every year now. The next Barbie will have wings and a halo that looks a bit like a showgirl. I didn’t want to do the normal Barbie. So we have a Barbie moment in the film as well.