Alexander Golitzen

Alexander Golitzen (born February 28, 1908 as Alexander Alexandrowitsch Galitzin in Moscow , † July 26, 2005 in San Diego , California ) was an American film architect .

Live and act

Golitzen came from the old noble family of Golitsyn . His parents, the doctor Alexander Golitsyn (1876-1951) and his wife Lyubow, née Glebowa (1882-1948), fled with Alexander and his siblings Olga, Marina, Natalia and Georg after the October Revolution, initially to Tyumen in western Siberia . There they got caught up in the turmoil of the Russian Civil War and continued their escape in stages to the east, with Alexander's father being separated from the rest of the family. Finally the family members found their way back together and reached Manchuria , where they lived in Harbin for a while and where Alexander's father practiced as a doctor, as at the previous locations. On October 7, 1923, Alexander's father came to Seattle to work for the Red Cross , and his family followed him the following year.

Alexander studied architecture at the University of Washington . In 1933 he moved to Los Angeles , where he became an assistant to Alexander Toluboff , who was also of Russian descent . First he worked at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer as a painter on the sets of Queen Christine ( Queen Christina ). In 1935 he began to work as an art director for various studios and independent producers such as Samuel Goldwyn and Walter Wanger . Since the film Arabian Nights ( Arabian Nights , 1942), he worked for Universal Studios . In the meantime, on April 28, 1936, he was naturalized.

While most of the film architects remained unknown, Alexander Golitzen was able to develop an almost legendary reputation, which at best equals that of Cedric Gibbons . He has worked on well over 300 movies and has left his mark on many of them. Technicolor films in particular were his specialty, for which he was said to have great talent and empathy. However, he was also a master of black and white film, which his Oscar for Who disturbs the nightingale showed.

From 1954, Golitzen was Universal's Supervising Art Director , a position he held until he retired in 1974. He said goodbye to the film business with one last big appearance. He received his last Oscar nomination for the film Earthquake , but in the rather unusual category of Production Designer . Here he had only a few works to show, also as a producer .

Awards

During his career, which started with ... Then came the Hurricane ( The Hurricane , 1937) as an assistant and lasted until the earthquake ( Earthquake , 1974), between 1941 and 1975 he was nominated no less than 14 times for an Oscar . He won the award three times: 1944 for Phantom of the Opera ( Phantom of the Opera ), 1960 for Spartacus and 1963 for Who disturbs the nightingale ( To Kill a Mockingbird ).

Remarks

1. ↑ He mentioned this name in his application for citizenship ( Declaration of Intention ) in 1930.
2. ↑ For the sometimes dramatic circumstances of this escape, see the chapter Dr. Golitsyn at Douglas Smith: The Last Dance. The fall of the Russian aristocracy. From the American by Bernd Rullkötter. Fischer Taschenbuch, Frankfurt am Main 2016, ISBN 978-3-596-19777-4 , pp. 228-252 (Orig .: Former People. The Final Days of the Russian Aristocracy , 2012).

literature

• Kay Less : The film's great personal dictionary . The actors, directors, cameramen, producers, composers, screenwriters, film architects, outfitters, costume designers, editors, sound engineers, make-up artists and special effects designers of the 20th century. Volume 3: F - H. Barry Fitzgerald - Ernst Hofbauer. Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-89602-340-3 , p. 313.

Web links

• Alexander Golitzen in the Internet Movie Database (English)