Jo Mielziner

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Joseph "Jo" Mielziner (born March 19, 1901 in Paris , † March 15, 1976 in New York City , New York ) was an American art director and production designer who worked for both Broadway and the Hollywood film industry and not only received the Tony Award , the most important US musical and theater award, five times , but also won the Oscar for best production design in the color film Picnic (1954) at the 1955 Academy Awards . For decades, Mielziner shaped the staging of Broadway theaters, just as Cedric Gibbons, who worked for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer , shaped the scenery in movies.

Life

First successes and work until the Second World War

Mielziner's set for a production of George Bernard Shaw's The Doctor's Dilemma (1927)

Mielziner grew up in France as the son of the artist Leo Mielziner, who immigrated from the United States and attended schools in England , the United States and later in Europe . Thanks to the reputation of his older brother, the actor Kenneth MacKenna , he began working as a stage manager in Michigan in 1923 and by the late 1920s had already earned the reputation of an amazing artistic genius. He ultimately rose to become the most influential production designer in the world of theater and designed the staging and lighting for around 200 Broadway productions as well as around 100 other off-Broadway productions. The painter Edward Hopper was one of his friends , and it is believed that his 1930 painting Early Sunday Morning is based on Mielziner's scenes in the 1929 play Street Scene by Elmer Rice .

During the Second World War he did his military service as a camouflage specialist with the US Army Air Corps , before becoming an employee of William Joseph "Wild Bill" Donovan , the head of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). In 1945 he designed special events as part of the signing of the United Nations Charter , but also the production design for the world premiere of the musical Carousel in New York's Majestic Theater on April 19, 1945.

His most important works include numerous classics from the US theater world, such as the 1947 world premiere of Tennessee Williams' stage work Endstation Sehnsucht at the Ethel Barrymore Theater in New York .

Tony Awards Winner and Oscar Winner

In 1949 he received his first Tony Award, with which, in addition to his production designs in Sleepy Hollow , Summer and Smoke , Anne of the Thousand Days and South Pacific, in particular his then revolutionary, transparent, skeletal production design in Death of a Salesman . Through his cross-style and cross-genre work, he also shaped other set designers in musical and theater productions.

Mielziner, who received his second Tony Award in 1950 for The Innocents , was particularly successful in staging bitter-realistic pieces that allowed abstract designs. He expanded his staff to include costume designers and lighting specialists . He received another Tony Award in 1952 for the design of the set for the world premiere of The King and I at the St. James Theater on March 29, 1951.

Despite numerous offers in the Hollywood film industry, Mielziner remained loyal to the theater, but in 1954, together with William Flannery and Robert Priestley, designed the sets for the color film Picnic (1954), a melodrama directed by Joshua Logan with William Holden , Kim Novak and Betty Field in the Leading roles . He was then nominated numerous times for the Tony Award for best production designer, in 1956 for The Cat on a Hot Tin Roof , The Lark , Middle of the Night and Pipe Dream , in 1958 for Look Homeward, Angel , Miss Lonelyhearts , The Squareroot of Wonderful , Oh, captain! and The Day the Money Stopped , 1960 for The Best Man and Gypsy and 1961 for The Devil's Advocate .

He later expanded his field of work to include interior design by working with the architect Eero Saarinen for the Vivian Beaumont Theater in Lincoln Center, which opened in 1965 . He has also worked as a design consultant for the Denver Center Theater and Wake Forest University in North Carolina .

After he received another Tony Award nomination in 1776 , he was awarded two more Tony Awards for Best Production Design and Best Lighting Design in 1970 for Child's Play . Most recently, in 1971, he received a Tony Award nomination for production design in Father's Day .

Private life

In the 1930s, under the influence of the later Catholic Bishop Fulton John Sheen, he converted to Catholicism and later designed Sheen's private chapel. Mielziner was married three times, including the actress Jeanne Macintyre and the journalist and author Marya Mannes .

Mielziner worked as a production designer for around fifty years before he worked on the consequences of a myocardial infarction while driving in a taxi and is said to have discussed the design concepts for the production of The Baker's Wife after his death with Ming Cho with David Merrick Lee were accomplished.

Theater scenes (selection)

  • 1923: The Failures
  • 1931: The Barretts of Wimpole Street
  • 1933: The Dark Tower
  • 1934: Romeo and Juliet
  • 1935: Jubilee
  • 1936: Hamlet
  • 1938: Sing Out the News
  • 1939: Christmas Eve
  • 1941: Watch on the Rhine
  • 1945: The Firebrand of Florence
  • 1946: Annie Get Your Gun
  • 1947: Allegro
  • 1950: Dance Me a Song
  • 1952: Flight Into Egypt
  • 1954: Fanny
  • 1956: The Most Happy Fella
  • 1958: Whoop-Up
  • 1960: Period of Adjustment
  • 1965: Guys and Dolls
  • 1968: I Never Sang for My Father
  • 1973; Out Cry
  • 1974: In Praise of Love

Awards

  • 1949: Tony Award for Best Production Design
  • 1950: Tony Award for Best Production Design
  • 1952: Tony Award for Best Production Design
  • 1955 : Oscar for the best production design in a color film
  • 1970: Tony Award for Best Production Design
  • 1970: Tony Award for the best lighting design

Web links