Halston rose to fame during the 1960s and 1970s, and his circle of friends included everyone you might find at the infamous Studio 54 at the height of disco. Diving into the lives of real-life people can often be tricky, but from the actors bear striking resemblances to the real people in Halston’s orbit, from Halston himself, to a beloved jewellery designer, an EGOT actress, and a beloved filmmaker. The Netflix limited series also made sure to consider the fashion, recreating iconic Halston outfits once worn by some of his closest friends and models, many of whom you might recognise.
That casting in this show is just that spot-on.
The Real Roy Halston
While he got his start making hats after designing the iconic pillbox hat Jacqueline Kennedy wore to her husband’s presidential inauguration in 1961, Halston later set his sights on women’s clothing. His designs are best described as simple and minimalist, yet comfortable and glamorous — something that was unheard of in women’s fashion at the time. Heading into the 1970s, he expanded even more, branching out into perfume, menswear, and luggage. He also designed uniforms for Braniff International Airways, the 1976 U.S. Olympic Team, and the Girl Scouts.
However, his good fortune and collaborations wouldn’t last forever. In the early 1980s, Halson signed a deal with J.C. Penny for $1 billion to bring his designs to the greater American public. While designer names are commonplace in affordable chain stores nowadays, back then it was unheard of. Unfortunately, Halston’s choice to go “mainstream” was received poorly by others and sales of his high-end clothing began to decline. His brand was sold multiple times and eventually, he was relatively phased out of all collections.
Halston had a long-term on-and-off-again relationship with makeup artist Victor Hugo, though he had some affairs during his lifetime, too. After testing positive for HIV in 1988, he died from complications of Kaposi’s sarcoma, an AIDS-defining illness, in 1990.
Photo: Bettmann/Getty Images.
Ewan McGregor as Halston
Before Halston, McGregor had no idea who was. “I didn’t know Halston,” McGregor told The Hollywood Reporter. “I was just really taken with the presentation.” After seeing images of Halston and all his celebrity friends, “I could tell instantly from the photographs: I wanted to play him. Just something about the way he holds himself, something in his eyes.”
But after you dive into this newest role, there’s honestly an Ewan McGregor movie or TV show for every mood. Want to watch him try to defeat the Dark Side? Turn on any of the Star Wars prequels, in which he plays Obi-Wan Kenobi trying to reign in a pre-Darth Vader Anakin Skywalker. Want to cry? Watch Big Fish. want to hear him sing? Watch Moulin Rouge (or the live-action Beauty and the Beast). If you want indie McGregor, go for Trainspotting and if you want to watch him evade the authorities, there’s always the Fargo miniseries.
Next, he’s returning to the role of Obi-Wan the series of the same name for Disney+. Photo: Courtesy of Netflix.
The Real Joel Schumacher
If his last name doesn’t immediately ring a bell, some of his movies probably will. Schumacher directed dozens of movies over his career, including the 1990s Batman Forever and Batman and Robin — along with The Lost Boys and St. Elmo’s Fire. He also wrote 1978’s The Wiz.
As for their history together, Schumacher and Halston became friends in the 1960s, while Schumacher was studying for his degree in fashion design. After a friend of a friend introduced the two, they became close and remained so for decades.
“I was doing costumes for $200 a week and dreaming of being a director. Halston was enormously helpful,” Schumacher told The Hollywood Reporter in 2019, explaining that Halston sent him samples for some of the movies he did costumes on. “He was so gracious and charming and had such beautiful manners. He spoke beautifully. He smoked beautifully. And he was also a very generous person to his friends and very loyal…He was one of the most loving, kindest friends I’ve ever had.” Photo: Ron Galella/Ron Galella Collection/Getty Images.
Rory Culkin as Joel Schumacher
If the last name doesn’t immediately put a picture in your head, yes, Culkin is from that Culkin family — his older brothers are Macaulay Culkin and Kieran Culkin. In fact, one of his earliest roles was actually playing the younger version of his brother, Kieran, in Igby Goes Down. He’s also appeared in a handful of TV series, ranging in everything from Castle Rock, Sneaky Pete, and The Twilight Zone in the early aughts. Photo: Courtesy of Netflix.
The Real Elsa Peretti
Halston had his own group of favorite models, which were nicknamed the “Halstonettes,” and that’s where Peretti got her first big break. As Halston once told Vanity Fair, “Elsa had style: she made the dress she was modeling her own.” But she didn’t just model for the fashion designer. She later started creating sterling silver jewellery for him, and eventually landed her own dedicated jewellery boutique inside New York City’s Bloomingdales in the 1970s.
Her popularity in New York led to a job at Tiffany’s, where Peretti quickly became the company’s lead jewellery designer and, with her use of silver, attracted younger women to the brand. When she passed away in March of 2021, Vogue called Peretti “arguably the most successful woman ever to work in the jewellery field.”Photo: Horst P Horst/Condé Nast/Shutterstock.
Rebecca Dayan as Elsa Peretti
Dayan started off as a model in her native France and studied fashioned design and jewellery, just like her character. She later moved to New York City to pursue these careers and, for her role as Peretti, she completely immersed herself in the world of the model-turned-fashion designer. According to W Magazine, Dayan immersed herself in Peretti’s lifestyle and history, even wearing her jewellery and Halston designs. Along the way, she also discovered some strange similarities between herself and Peretti.
“There were all these weird little connections,” she told the magazine. “There’s this photo of [Peretti] and Salvador Dalí together, which was taken in a Spanish town called Cadaques, where Dalí had a house — my parents also have a house there. Elsa studied glassblowing, and I grew up going on field trips to a historic glassblowing town called Biot in France.”Photo: Courtesy of Netflix.
The Real Joe Eula
Eula started as a fashion illustrator, and spent the better part of his life sketching and drawing different designs for a bevy of designers, including Halston. In the early 1970s, he started working as a freelance creative art director consultant to Halston, in addition to consulting for Vogue and Interview. He later became the creative director for the Halston fashion line, before becoming the creative director of all Halston images, ad campaigns, and collections from through 1980. Photo: Rose Hartman/Archive Photos/Getty Images.
David Pittu as Joe Eula
Pittu has previously popped up in big blockbusters, like Men In Black and King Kong. He’s also no stranger to prestige drama, having appeared on The Good Wife, Damages, and across the Law & Order franchise. And let’s not forget his voice-over work: he lent his voice to Red Dead Reception and the Grand Theft Auto games. Photo: Courtesy of Netflix.
The Real Liza Minnelli
It might be safe to assume you know the name Liza Minnelli, but just in case, here goes: Judy Garland’s equally famous daughter has spent the better part of the last century entertainer on the stage, screen, and television — an yes, she’s got an EGOT winner. But before she started sweeping award shows, Minnelli was one of Halston’s good friends and muses. He designed the costumes for all her live performances, in addition to the famous yellow gown she wore in 1972 when she won the Oscar for her role in Cabaret. Photo: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images.
Krysta Rodriguez as Liza Minnelli
Smash stans know all about Rodriguez, as she joined the beloved, but short-lived NBC series in the second season as Ana Vargas — and Rodriguez is really a Broadway star, too. She’s appeared in productions of Spring Awakening, In The Heights, and most recently in The Public Theater’s production of Hercules, in which she played Megara. ON TV, she’s appeared on Younger, Quantico, and Netflix’s jukebox series Soundtrack.
Taking on the role of Minnelli was a dream for Rodriguez, who loved dressing up in some of the performer’s most memorable looks. “It was fun to see how accurate we can get,” Rodriguez told Vogue, noting the series’ dedication to using reference image to get the Halston looks just right. And once she was in some of these famous outfits, Rodriguez told the magazine she felt even more connected to Minnelli: “You watch her performances, and she’s not worried about how perfect she looks — she wants to get that guttural emotion across.” Photo: Courtesy of Netflix.
The Real Victor Hugo
Victor Hugo — who, yes, shares a name with the famed French writer — was a Venezuelan-born American artist who met Halston at the club and quickly started a relationship with him, both personally and professionally. The two had an on-and-off again relationship for a decade. Professionally, Hugo started dressing Halston’s window designs, and later went on to work as Andy Warhol’s assistants at The Factory.
But Hugo’s relationship with Halston behind the scenes has been characterised as “chaotic.” In a 2019 interview with New Now Next, Halston producer and biographer Steven Gaines called their relationship a “real love of a sort. It wasn’t the kind of romantic, sweet, tender, caring love.” Gaines paints a tumultuous picture of the duo, claiming that Hugo allegedly stole from Halston when the designer fell ill, but that Halston supposedly enjoyed the drama of it all.
Hugo died in 1993, and in 2007 Milk Gallery in New York hosted an exhibition of Hugo’s work with Warhol. Photo: Ron Galella/Ron Galella Collection/Getty Images.
Gian Franco Rodriguez as Victor Hugo
Victor Hugo marks Rodriguez’s first major television role, but he does have a handful of shorts to his name in Venezuela. “Gian Franco met the challenge of this larger-than-life character who was a Dada artist, hustler, sexual outlaw and general disruptor. He made us laugh every day,” said McGregor of his co-star, in a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter.
The Real David Mahoney
The quicker your company grows, the faster it’s going to attract the attention of other companies, too. Mahoney worked as the CEO of the mega-company Norton Simon when it began branching out into fashion brands in the 1970s, which is about when he began crossing paths with Halston. Halston eventually sold his namesake to Mahoney’s company, and Norton Simon began labelling things as “Halston” even though they weren’t actually designed by the Halston — the designer just had to give approval for items to be branded as such. Photo: AP/Shutterstock.
Bill Pullman as David Mahoney
Pullman has been a movie-star staple for decades, playing Lone Starr in the Star Wars spoof Spaceballs, killing the game when it comes to rom-coms about sleeping (Sleepless in Seattle and While You Were Sleeping), and reciting one of the most quotable speeches in movie history as the president in Independence Day. He currently stars on USA’s The Sinner, playing Detective Harry Ambrose.
And he was more than game to step into Mahoney’s shoes and explore Halston’s world. Pullman recently told GQ that the two “had a brilliant ride together.” Photo: Courtesy of Netflix.
The Real Eleanor Lambert
If you want to hear about a woman who made a long-lasting impact on the fashion world without ever designing so much as a handkerchief, look no further than Lambert. Though she started out a publicist for the Whitney Museum of American Art, she eventually made the shift into fashion.
In 1943 she founded New York Fashion Week, significantly raising the profile of American fashion all over the world. She’s also the founder of the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA). Shortly after organizing CFDA, in 1965, President Lyndon Johnson named her to the National Council on the Arts of the National Endowment for the Arts. She also started the International Best Dressed Hall of Fame List, and prior to her death left it in the hands of “four friends at Vanity Fair.” Photo: Bettmann/Getty Images.
Kelly Bishop as Eleanor Lambert
For anyone who’s spent time in Stars Hollow, Bishop is immediately recognisable as Gilmore Girls matriarch Emily Gilmore. Before she was hosting Friday night dinners, Bishop made her mark on the theatre world, originating the role of Sheila in A Chorus Line and winning a Tony for her performance, too. Elsewhere on TV, she’s appeared in everything from Law and Order, to Murphy Brown, and also the gone-too-soon-favourite Bunheads. Photo: Courtesy of Netflix.
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