Bob Mackie was anything but an old hack, but if there was anyone who could sell him on the idea of a glamorous one, it was Jean Smart.
In May, Mackie made what would be his final TV appearance in episode 7 of the final season of "Hacks." The episode follows an extremely desperate Deborah Vance (Smart) as she goes to great lengths − including crashing a couples' weekend and pretending to be in a relationship with her head writer Ava Daniels (played by Hannah Einbinder) − to get her hands on a vintage jumpsuit worn by Carol Burnett and famously created by Mackie himself. In order to track down the whereabouts of the iconic jumpsuit, Mackie is the first person Vance calls.
The designer's longtime design director and close friend, Joe McFate, recalls
the day that Mackie was asked to take part in the now-iconic episode.
"Paul W. Downs and the three writers sent an email and said, 'Would you play yourself on the show?' I read the email and then we screamed with laughter. We couldn't stop laughing. He was like, 'Well, of course I'll play myself.' And all I could think of is, 'Oh God, he has to remember lines," McFate tells USA TODAY.
He went on to joke that Mackie was "a designer, not an actor."
Although Mackie was no stranger to appearing as himself on TV series like "The Love Boat" and "RuPaul's Drag Race," being a part of the Emmy-winning HBO Max series presented him with a special opportunity to also pay homage to his close friend and decades-long client, Carol Burnett.
Joking that the "chain of events" began with Burnett, who made a cameo in Season 4 of the show, McFate says the legendary comedian foreshadowed Mackie's involvement with the show.
"She called and said, 'Honey, if [the show] calls you, act surprised,'" McFate recalls of Burnett's conversation with him and Mackie. "So they called and asked if they could borrow something from the archive. And I said, 'Absolutely.'"
To find what would be "the look" for the episode, McFate and Mackie dug deep into their Burnett archives, explaining to USA TODAY that they still have most of the comedian's ensembles from her famed sketch show. Following an extensive archive search, the design duo settled on Burnett's white jumpsuit for the episode.
The look was then approved by the "Hacks" production team with a slight hiccup: Smart was taller than Burnett. But the costume department had a fix. The show costume designer, Kathleen Felix-Hager, asked if they could make a replica of the design, which Mackie and McFate gladly approved.
"They did it line for line, bead for bead, the same fabric, same everything," McFate recalls.
In a May interview, Felix-Hager said she was "really proud" of her recreation. "I wanted to be respectful of his original design, and I was so honored to meet him and work with him. That’s kind of a special moment for me, too. And then he was unbelievable in the little cameo we see of him in the show!”
With the outfit picked, all that was left was to get Mackie prepped for his big scene, in which the designer discusses the jumpsuit with Vance over the phone.
"We worked for weeks and weeks and weeks," McFate reflects. "Believe me, I was drilling him in the car over coffee, on break. I was drilling him everywhere."
But then TV turmoil struck.
"The day we got to the set, they came in with brand new pages. So we had to learn a whole new scene," McFate laughs, noting how they were stressed at first, but luckily Smart was there to help.
"Jean Smart came down and read the scene with [Mackie] several times," McFate recalls. "She didn't have to do that … She read the scene with him several times so he could get the feeling of actually being on the phone with her. It made me love her all the more."
In addition to Smart's attentiveness, McFate remembers the cast and crew warmly welcoming them to the set and how the production team accurately recreated Mackie's studio for the scene.
"It was a very emotional day. All of the creatives from the team came over and took pictures with Bob. And they beautifully recreated his studio..." McFate says. "It was really a highlight, I know, of his life in these last few months that he did 'Hacks.' And he got to be himself."
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Why Bob Mackie's 'Hacks' cameo was a 'highlight' of his life
