Richard Day (production designer)

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Richard Day (born May 9, 1896 in Victoria , British Columbia , Canada , † May 23, 1972 in Hollywood , Los Angeles ) was a Canadian production designer for films.

Life

Richard Day was born in Victoria, British Columbia in 1896 to an architect. His career in Hollywood began when director Erich von Stroheim discovered him and hired him as an outfitter for the silent film Blind Husbands (1919). Day then became a close colleague of Stroheims and other joint films followed, such as Gier (1924), The Merry Widow (1925) or The Wedding March (1928), for which Day rebuilt St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna in detail. At the end of the 1920s, they parted ways and Day worked from then on as a production designer for a number of other well-known directors such as John Ford , Raoul Walsh , Howard Hawks , William Wyler and Fritz Lang .

Over the years, Day gained a reputation as a particularly resourceful film architect and, along with MGM's Cedric Gibbons, was one of the masters of his craft. He has been nominated for an Oscar in the category Best Production Design a total of twenty times . He has won the trophy seven times, including for William Wyler's social drama Zeit der Liebe, Zeit des Farewell (1936), for John Ford's social study Schlagende Wetter (1941), for the film musical The Queen of Broadway (1942) and for the two film dramas by Elia Kazan Endstation Sehnsucht (1951) and Die Faust im Nacken (1954). For his last feature film, the war film Tora! Torah! Torah! (1970), Day was nominated for an Oscar one last time. He then withdrew from the film business after having worked in more than 280 cinema productions.

Richard Day died in Los Angeles in 1972 at the age of 76 and was buried in the Pierce Brothers Valhalla Memorial Park.

Filmography (selection)

Awards

Oscar

Best production design

Nominated:

Won:

  • 1936: The way in the dark
  • 1937: time of love, time of parting
  • 1942: Beatiful Weather (with Nathan Juran, Thomas Little)
  • 1943: This Above All (with Joseph C. Wright, Thomas Little)
  • 1943: The Queen of Broadway (with Joseph C. Wright, Thomas Little)
  • 1952: Endstation Sehnsucht (together with George James Hopkins )
  • 1955: The fist in the neck

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Donald Albrecht: Designing Dreams: Modern Architecture in the Movies . Harper & Row, 1986, ISBN 0-06055-020-1 , p. 90.
personal data
SURNAME Day, Richard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Canadian production designer
DATE OF BIRTH May 9, 1896
PLACE OF BIRTH Victoria (British Columbia) , British Columbia , Canada
DATE OF DEATH May 23, 1972
Place of death Hollywood , Los Angeles , California , United States