09/15/2026
Bob Mackie, the costume designer who dressed Cher, Carol Burnett, Diana Ross and Elton John, died on Monday in Palm Springs. He was 87, and his publicist says the cause was pneumonia.
Cher said goodbye on X: "My dear Bob has gone up to heaven. Knowing him, he's bringing Sequins, Beads, & his sketch pad. Good nite sweet Prince."
As a young sketch artist working for designer Jean Louis, Mackie drew the original sketch for Marilyn Monroe's "Happy Birthday, Mr. President" dress. Then came all 11 seasons of The Carol Burnett Show, including the curtain-rod gown from her Gone With the Wind spoof, and more than 50 years of Cher. Along the way he won 9 Emmys and a Tony for The Cher Show.
He sat on the judging panel for the very first episode of RuPaul's Drag Race in 2009, and RuPaul once summed him up: "You're born naked, and the rest is Bob Mackie." Earlier this year he played himself in the final season of Hacks.
His partner of nearly 50 years, costume designer Ray Aghayan, died in 2011. Together they won the first Emmy ever given for costume design. "Bob did it all," Carol Burnett wrote on Monday. "There was no one like him."
