Costumer Sews Up Medals at Track Meet

Movie costumer Magdalena Kuehne, 67, applies her knowledge of sewing together buttons and cloth to her other love, sports.

“If you train too fast, if you sew too fast, you can injure yourself or somebody else,” she said, leaning on a manikin in a Warner Bros. Studios costume shop. “And if you don’t do something right, you just have to start over.”

Kuehne, who lives in Sunland-Tujunga, knows both fields well. She is head of the the costume department at Warner Bros., and is also a medal-winning track-and-field athlete.

At the National Masters Indoor Track and Field Championships held in Boston last month, Kuehne won medals in all five events she entered. Her total haul in the triple jump, long jump, shot put, and 60-and 200-meter sprint categories was three golds and two silvers.

In addition, she holds the women’s American indoor record for the triple jump in her age group (65-69).

“Some people would say that I’m too old to do the triple jump because you can damage your hips, but it’s my favorite event and I could never give it up,” she said.

Kuehne trains alone at a track at a local high school. By the time she gets there after work, the gate to the track is locked.

No problem. Kuehne climbs over.

“Its a workout before my workout,” she said.

An athlete since she was a child, Kuehne played basketball, handball and ran track as a youth in a town on the border of Hungary and Yugoslavia.

“When I was coming up, sports weren’t as popular as they are now for women,” she said. “Today, girls can do so much more than when I was young.”