Editing Edith Head (section)

==Early life and career==
She was born '''Edith Claire Posener''' in [[San Bernardino, California]], the daughter of [[Jewish]] parents, Max Posener and Anna E. Levy. Her father, born in January 1858, was a naturalized American citizen from Germany,{{citation needed|date=October 2022}} who came to the United States in 1876. Her mother was born in St. Louis, Missouri in 1875, the daughter of an Austrian father and a Bavarian mother.{{citation needed|date=October 2022}} Max and Anna married in 1895, according to the 1900 United States Federal Census records. Just before Edith's birth, Max Posener opened a small [[haberdasher]]y in San Bernardino, which failed within a year.

The marriage did not survive. In 1905, Anna remarried, this time to mining engineer Frank Spare, originally from [[Pennsylvania]]. The family moved frequently as Spare's jobs moved.  The only place Head could later recall living during her early years was [[Searchlight, Nevada]]. Frank and Anna Spare passed Edith off as their child. As Frank Spare was a Catholic, Edith ostensibly became one as well.<ref>{{cite book|last=Chierichetti|first=David|title=Edith Head: The Life and Times of Hollywood's Celebrated Costume Designer|url=https://archive.org/details/edithhead00davi|url-access=limited|year=2003|publisher=HarperCollins|location=New York|isbn=0-06-019428-6|pages=[https://archive.org/details/edithhead00davi/page/2 2]–3}}</ref>

In 1919, Edith received a Bachelor of Arts degree in letters and sciences with honors in French from the [[University of California, Berkeley]], and in 1920 earned a Master of Arts degree in romance languages from [[Stanford University]].<ref>{{cite book|last=Chierichetti|first=David|title=Edith Head: The Life and Times of Hollywood's Celebrated Costume Designer|url=https://archive.org/details/edithhead00davi|url-access=limited|year=2003|publisher=HarperCollins|location=New York|isbn=0-06-019428-6|page=[https://archive.org/details/edithhead00davi/page/6 6]}}</ref>

She became a language teacher with her first position as a replacement at [[The Bishop's School]] in [[La Jolla]] teaching French. After one year, she took a position teaching Spanish at the [[Hollywood School for Girls]]. Wanting a slightly higher salary, she told the school that she could also teach art, even though she had only briefly studied the discipline in high school.<ref>{{cite book|last=Chierichetti|first=David|title=Edith Head: The Life and Times of Hollywood's Celebrated Costume Designer|url=https://archive.org/details/edithhead00davi|url-access=limited|year=2003|publisher=HarperCollins|location=New York|isbn=0-06-019428-6|pages=[https://archive.org/details/edithhead00davi/page/7 7]–8}}</ref> To improve her drawing skills, at this point rudimentary, she took evening classes at the [[Otis College of Art and Design|Otis Art Institute]] and [[Chouinard Art Institute|Chouinard Art College]].<ref>{{Cite book|title=Costume design in the movies : an illustrated guide to the work of 157 great designers|author=Leese, Elizabeth|date=1991|publisher=Dover Publications|isbn=048626548X|location=New York|oclc=23386758}}</ref>

On July 25, 1923, she married Charles Head, the brother of one of her Chouinard classmates, Betty Head. Although the marriage ended in divorce in 1938 after a number of years of separation, she continued to be known professionally as Edith Head until her death. In 1940 she married award-winning art director [[Wiard Ihnen]], a marriage which lasted until his death in 1979.