Arthur W. Gerold, 92, 1960s Broadway Costumer

Arthur William Gerold, who was the first general manager of the Lambertville Music Circus in the 1950s and owner of the Brooks-Van Horn Costume Company in New York from 1962 to 1981, died May 13 in Doylestown. He was 92.

His death was confirmed by his daughter, Barbara Vehling.

Mr. Gerold first joined the Van Horn Costume Company of Philadelphia, one of the oldest theatrical costume providers in the world, in 1955 after a stint managing St. John Terrell’s Lambertville Music Circus Summer Stock Theater in Lambertville, New Jersey, the country's first commercial theater under a tent.

Mr. Gerold became a leading supplier for Broadway productions by legendary producers such as David Merrick when he bought Van Horn in 1962 after it had merged with the Brooks Uniform Company. His workrooms turned out costumes for the original stage productions of hundreds of shows including such hits as Hello Dolly, West Side Story, Auntie Mame, Cabaret, Hair and Company.

Brooks-Van Horn also outfitted the entire cast of The Godfather and produced the costumes for the original Coneheads and Killer Bee characters on Saturday Night Live. Leading designers he worked with included Irene Sharaff, William Ivey Long, and David Toser.

From 1971 to 1981 Brooks-Van Horn outfitted the Ringling Brothers Circus, from clown suits to gaudy elephant blankets. Mr. Gerold sold Brooks-Van Horn in 1981.

In 1973 he purchased a farm near New Hope, Pennsylvania, and converted it into the Bucks Country Vineyards. In addition to promoting local wines he displayed costumes that had been worn by Carol Channing, Barbara Streisand, Mary Martin, Pearl Bailey, Richard Burton, Audrey Hepburn, Ethel Merman and Julie Andrews, among others. When he sold the winery in 1990 he donated his collection of about two hundred costumes to the Paper Mill Playhouse in Millburn, N.J.

Mr. Gerold was born August 23, 1923 in West New York, New Jersey. He attended Rutgers University before enlisting in the Navy during World War II. In 1946 he was assigned to a naval vessel that participated in the first nuclear weapons test at Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands.

In 1952 Mr. Gerold married Marilyn Jean Miller, an actress appearing under the stage name Marilyn Day in the role of Sharon in the national touring company of “Finian’s Rainbow” at the Lambertville Music Circus. The couple settled in Solebury, Pennsylvania, near New Hope. Mrs. Gerold died in 2002.

Mr. Gerold is survived by a son, Peter Gerold; daughters Susan Hewitt and Barbara Vehling; six granddaughters and five great-grandchildren.

Services will be held June 6, at 11 AM at St. John the Evangelist Roman Catholic Church, 44 Bridge St, Lambertville, NJ. In lieu of flowers or gifts the family requests donations be made in Arthur's memory to the Macula Vision Research Foundation, One Tower Bridge 100 Front Street, Suite 300, West Conshohocken, PA 19428-2894