She started out working behind the makeup counter at Horne's department store in Downtown Pittsburgh.

Who would have dreamed that 30 years later, she would have two Emmy Awards for TV makeup?

Carnegie resident Marianne Skiba has applied her skills to hundreds of famous faces: Billy Crystal, Maury Povich, Neil Patrick Harris, Carol Burnett, Kelly Ripa, Meryl Streep, Rosie O'Donnell, Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Walter Cronkite, Al Gore, Donald Trump. That's just a snippet of her resume.

And, no -- for her -- those Emmys were not a surprise.

"I had a friend when I first moved to New York whose father and grandfather had been TV directors," she recalled. "On their mantel they had a whole slew of Emmys dating back to when the Emmys started."

At that time, she didn't even know what the Emmys were. But as soon as she found out, she thought, "I want this. How do I do it?"

That drive has gotten her exactly what she wanted, and not just Emmys.

"I've been fortunate enough to do most of what I wanted to do in this business." After trying stage and fashion makeup, she settled on the TV/ film sector more than 20 years ago. She has done movies ("Zack and Miri Make a Porno," "Homecoming," "The Family Man" and others), TV drama series, soap operas, "Saturday Night Live," nightly news, game shows and commercials.

Her home base, so to speak, is "Law & Order." She has worked on that show for 12 years and loves it, noting the filming is fast-paced and has forced her to become "really fast with beauty makeup and special effects." She gets to do everything from famous faces (Sam Waterston is "wonderful" and very nice, she noted) to bodies that appear charred and scarred.

Aside from this regular gig, she works as a freelancer, which means she yo-yos from job to job, choosing the most attractive and traveling when she wants.

Her travel schedule has increased these days because she's moving back to Pittsburgh but still works often in New York. She and husband Peter Whyte bought the house next door to her mom, who has had health problems. Ms. Skiba works here, too, making up actors and politicians and working as an image consultant. Recently, she has done makeup for the Russell Crowe movie "The Next Three Days," during filming here.

She credits Chanel with giving her top-notch training at Horne's when she was 16 and a student at Burgettstown Area High School. Many people in the TV and film makeup business, she said, start out working behind the store counter. "It's like waiting tables to an actor."

In fact, after she moved to New York, she continued to work at Macy's and Saks Fifth Avenue until she got enough regular TV and film work.

That instruction from the cosmetics companies is her only formal training. When she was starting out, the only film makeup school in the country was in Hollywood, and "no way was a girl from Pittsburgh going to get to go out there."

So she did the next best thing: taught herself. She haunted the library and drama bookstore, buying books and practicing constantly. Cheeky, perhaps, but she also contacted the masters and peppered them with questions.

"I found that I could call some of the biggest names in the business," she said, noting the "old-timers" -- the ones who started the union for makeup artists and pioneered the industry -- were willing to help.

Much has changed since she entered the business. There are makeup schools on the East Coast now where she teaches.

Makeup also has changed. Organic cosmetics are growing in popularity among many actors, especially in Hollywood.

While the tried and true artificial cosmetics still are best for special-effects makeup, even those have become more authentic.

"The consistencies and textures are more and more real-looking," she said. "There's not as much work involved. It's easier and faster than it used to be."

It's still no slap-and-dash effort: "It takes hours to create special makeup effects."

Monster makeup takes six or eight hours; heavy body scarring may take three to four hours.

Those long sessions can drag on, and "there are things I'd never want to do again," such as "24-hour days in the cold and rain with no food and unhappy people."

And, yes, she has diva stories, but she's not telling. For the most part, she has met good people, namely Mr. Waterston, Regis Philbin and Gwen Verdon. She worked as Susan Lucci's personal makeup artist for three or four years, not only for ABC's long-running soap "All My Children" but also for movies, charity events, commercials and other events.

"The downside of being a personal makeup artist is that you're kind of attached at the hip and working on somebody else's schedule."

But Ms. Lucci, she said, made up for that by being a "fun person and a very funny lady."

Skiba has also enjoyed the variety of media she has tried.

"I love episodic TV [especially "Law & Order"] -- I love it even more than movies," she said. But she's quick to add, "I loved working on the soap operas, too. It's all glamour all the time."

Her Emmys came from her work on soaps -- in 1999 for "All My Children" and 2001 for "As the World Turns."

"We'd never had an Emmy for makeup for 'All My Children,' and it had been on for something like 25 years. I sat down with the director and said we needed a script that covered all the bases," allowing for special-effects makeup as well as the usual beauty-queen stuff. Lo and behold, the right script came along that included a beautiful dressy party and a plane crash."

That was the episode that won Skiba her first Emmy.

Her next dream is to be the makeup head on a series shot in Pittsburgh so she can do the work she loves while staying home.

"Most films that come here bring their department heads and staff from L.A. or elsewhere, and the locals get called for days when they need extra hands."

But in her opinion, locals could do more. "There are several experienced, talented makeup artists and hairstylists who live in the area, myself included, who would love to see that change."

Meanwhile, she'll keep shuttling between Pittsburgh and New York. At least here, she has one thing she didn't have in New York -- a place large enough to put the Emmys. For a decade they've sat in a storage box.

Her new house in Carnegie has "a beautiful mantel in the living room, so they will finally be displayed."

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