Fletcher, Robert, 1922-2021

Robert Fletcher (1922-2021) was born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, the son of actor Leon Ames. He attended Harvard College and Bennington College, graduating from Harvard in 1946 following service in the United States Army Air Corps Cadet Corp in World War II. During his final years at Harvard, Fletcher was involved with the Harvard Veterans Theatre Workshop and the Brattle Theatre in Harvard Square, where he was employed as an actor and set and costume designer following graduation. Fletcher relocated to New York in the early 1950s, where he focused on his design work, creating set and costume designs for ballets, operas, and musicals, including Noel Coward’s High Spirits, How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying, King Lear (in which Orson Welles had the title role), Happiest Girl in the World, A Family Affair, Nowhere To Go But Up, Little Me, The Moon Besieged, among many others. Fletcher was hired by NBC in the mid-1960s, and went on to design costumes for the Dean Martin Show and other television specials and productions.

Fletcher relocated to Los Angeles to work in costume design for television and film, before moving to Taos, New Mexico in 1989. Perhaps Fletcher’s most well-known film credit as a costume designer is for the first four Star Trek films. He has continued to design costumes and sets for theatre, ballet, and opera productions across the United States, including on Broadway, as well as at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles, the St. Louis Municipal Opera Theater, the Kansas City Repertory Theatre, and many more, as well as many costumes for Bollywood films in India. He has acted as a costume design consultant for HBO productions including Rome and Game of Thrones. Fletcher was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Motion Picture Costume Design Guild in 2005.

Fletcher has been with husband Jack Fletcher Kauflin, an original member of the New York City Ballet, Broadway dancer, and singer, since the early 1950s. Kauflin preceded Fletcher in death; Fletcher died on April5, 2021 in Kansas City, Missouri.

In 2008, Fletcher received a Theatre Development Fund/Irene Sharaff Lifetime Achievement Award for his set design. He has also received three Tony Award nominations for his work. Fletcher's three Tony Award nominations were for Little Me in 1963, High Spirits in 1964 and Hadrian VII in 1969. He also received a Drama Desk Award Nomination for Outstanding Costume Design for Othello in 1982.