Harry Ransom CenterThe University of Texas at Austin

While Simmons was known primarily as a costumer of "live" productions, the company costumed over 100 British films ranging from Kind Hearts and Coronets to I, Claudius. Many of the major motion picture studios had their own costume departments, but J. Arthur Rank and London Film Productions contracted with Simmons to make most of their costumes in the 1940s. Simmons also did a great deal of work for small independent films, and films with small casts. Simmons was perhaps unique among film costumiers for having often dressed the original stage version of a play which then took on a second life as a film.

Aunt Sally

Directed by Tim Whelan for Gainsborough Pictures /
Gaumont British Picture Corporation Ltd., 1933
Costumes designed by Gordon Conway

Beau Brummel

Directed by Curtis Bernhardt for MGM, 1954
Costumes designed by Elizabeth Haffenden

Ben-Hur

Directed by William Wyler for MGM, 1959
Costumes designed by Elizabeth Haffenden

The Constant Nymph

Directed by Basil Dean for Gaumont British Picture Corporation, 1933
Costumes designed by Gordon Conway

Henry V

Directed by Laurence Olivier for Two Cities Films, 1944
Costumes designed by Roger Furse

I, Claudius

Directed by Denis Kavanagh and Josef Von Sternberg
for London Film Productions, 1937 (not completed)
Costumes designed by John Armstrong

The Scarlet Pimpernel

Directed by Harold Young for London Film Productions, 1934
Costumes designed by John Armstrong and Oliver Messel