A LEIGH-born wardrobe mistress and costumier to the stars, Jean Hunnisett, has died aged 73.

Jean (nee Gore) produced amazing costumes for theatre, opera, films and TV and made her name by dressing the six queens in the 1969 BBC blockbuster "Six Wives of Henry VIII" and Glenda Jackson in "Elizabeth R" the following year.

The former Bedford Methodist and Manchester Road Secondary School girl, of Prestwich Avenue, also made dresses for top Hollywood stars Margaret Lockwood, Kathrine Hepburn and Ann Margret, ballet prima donna Margot Fonteyn, opera diva Joan Hammond as well as the best of British actresses including Joan Plowright, Julie Walters and Beryl Read.

After leaving school Jean went to Bolton Art College and as a keen theatre fan studied acting at the Oxford Playhouse School where she started dressing plays.

While working for the Oxford University Drama Society she was offered a job as a wardrobe mistress for the new Westminster Theatre Company.

She moved on to the Old Vic, Sadlers Wells and by now married to orchestra bassoonist Tom, Jean joined the BBC as a dresser working with in her words "wonderful artists" like Stanley Baxter, Chico Marx and Ginger Rogers and doing bread and butter shows such as The Billy Cotton Band Show, What's My Line and the Black and White Minstrel Show.

She started making replicas for museums and in 1961 went freelance and set up her own business, also working at Glyndebourne.

She did a tremendous amount of research and was acclaimed for the authenticity of her costumes.

She became an active member of the Costume Society and began writing a series of books on Costume for the Stage and Screen, the last one, the fifth, which she completed in hospital. These are used widely in colleges all over the world.

On retirement she settled in Poole, Dorset, where her funeral took place last week.