William Ivey Long is one of the most prolific—and highest paid—costumers on Broadway.

Long was raised in a theatrical family. He spent the first three years of his life living in the stage-left dressing room of Raleigh Little Theater's amphitheater where his father, William Sr., worked as technical director and his mother, Mary, acted and designed costumes. After studying design at the Yale School of Drama (where he roomed with Sigourney Weaver and Meryl Streep), Long moved to New York in the mid-'70s, settling into the Chelsea Hotel. For a few years he worked as an unpaid apprentice for couturier and fellow Chelsea Hotel tenant Charles James, but then in 1978 a friend from Yale hooked him up with a gig designing costumes for a revival of Gogol's The Inspector General. When he earned a Drama Desk award for his costuming work on 1979's The 1940s Radio Hour, a career was born.

He now has an endlessly long list of costuming credits, and is one of the most connected players on Broadway—he's worked with virtually every big-name Broadway director, actor, and producer in the business. The most prolific costumer on Broadway—others costumers, in fact, often grumble that he hoards commissions—Long has designed getups for more than 50 Broadway shows, including Nine, Guys and Dolls, Smoky Joe's Café, Hairspray, Little Shop of Horrors, the Weisslers' long-running Chicago, The Producers (both the stage and film incarnations), Contact, and Grey Gardens, not to mention dozens of off-Broadway shows. He's even lent his sequined expertise to Siegfried and Roy's Mirage hotel performances in Vegas.

The single Long says he's never had a steady partner. On her deathbed, his mother refused to acknowledge that her son was gay, saying, "I still hope you find some nice girl and settle down and have children." [Image via Getty]