A GOOD NOSE.(makeup artist John Caglione, Jr.)(Interview)

What with the hubbub over Nicole Kidman's nose in "The Hours”--the film didn't get a best-makeup Oscar nomination because the nose was digitally enhanced--this is a good time to be a maker of bona-fide artificial noses. John Caglione, Jr., who won the Oscar for makeup in 1991, for his work in the movie "Dick Tracy,"takes great pride in his craft. "You have to be a really good sculptor to make a foamed-latex nose,"he explained the other day from his studio, on Long Island. He was busy baking nose molds for the actress Tovah Feldshuh, who plays Golda Meir in the play "Golda's Balcony.” "A nose is a tricky appliance, because it has to blend in with the whole face--it's kind of the bull's-eye on the target,"Caglione said.

It is widely understood in the industry that the best makeup artists work in film, not theatre, because of the closeup. So when David Fishelson, the artistic director of the Manhattan Ensemble Theatre, which is putting on "Golda's Balcony,"went looking for a nose man for the show he looked to Hollywood. "Caglione is Pacino's personal prostheticist,"Fishelson said. "This guy's a major Hollywood guy--he's the one people go to when they want a nose."

"For 'Dick Tracy,' I made Al a nose and an upper lip and a chin appliance,"Caglione said. "He said he looked like a cross between Adolf Hitler and Groucho Marx."Caglione's expertise doesn't come cheap. "It's not too bad, price-wise,"Fishelson said philosophically. "It's kind of the cost of another actor.”

The Golda nose is made of foamed latex. "I first have to make positive and negative molds, which get baked in the oven for two hours,"Caglione explained. "The positive mold represents Tovah's nose, the negative mold is Golda's nose, and then the two molds lock together. To make Tovah's mold, I took an impression of her face--the same way a dentist uses that jellylike stuff to make a mold of your teeth--but there's this special kind that's used for prosthetics, for people missing arms and legs. It's called prosthetic alginate. Then on top of that I lay plaster-of-Paris bandages. To make the negative mold of Golda's face, I surround my desk with photographs of her, and I get out my clay and make a guesstimate. In the airspace between Golda's nose and Tovah's mold, I pump in latex. ...