Patricia Norris was an Oscar nominated and Emmy Award winning costume and production designer. She was nominated for an Academy Award six times, for her costume design work on the films 12 Years a Slave; Sunset; 2010; Victor, Victoria; The Elephant Man and Days of Heaven. She was nominated twice for an Emmy Award for her work on Twin Peaks, for Art Direction and Costume Design, winning for the latter in 1990.

She won a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Art Directors Guild, as well as another from the Costume Designers Guild, the only person to receive that award from both guilds. And in 2014 the CDG awarded her with Excellence in a Period Film for her work on 12 Years a Slave.

Her work in television was also expansive. She was a costumer for 105 episodes of The Waltons, the television mini-series Return to Lonesome Dove and Sybil and the television version of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.

She frequently collaborated with David Lynch. She was the costume designer for The Elephant Man, the production designer for Blue Velvet, and both the production and costume designer for Wild at Heart, Lost Highway and of course the pilot for Twin Peaks.

Her other film work included the Brad Pitt-starring Killing Them Softly and The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford; Mel Brooks films Silent Movie, High Anxiety and History Of The World: Part 1 and the Oliver Stone classic Scarface.

Norris died on February 20, 2015 in Van Nuys, California. She was 83.