Alexander Golitzen

Alexander Golitzen was a legendary art director, a field in which most worker's names remain relatively unknown. His prolific work in hundreds of films, predominantly at Universal, made his name familiar to many film-goers, at least among those who read credits. Possibly only Cedric Gibbons, at MGM, shared a similar fame. Golitzen was nominated for Academy Awards fourteen times, winning on three occasions. Golitzen's family, noble descendants of princes of Lithuania, fled Moscow following the Russian Revolution, so he found himself in America at the age of 16. The family settled in Seattle and Alexander earned a degree in architecture from the University of Washington. He moved to Los Angeles in 1933 and became an assistant to the fellow Russian-born art director, Alexander Toluboff at MGM working as an illustrator for Queen Christina (1933). He became an art director in 1935, and went on to work at various studios for independent producers, including Samuel Goldwyn and Walter Wanger. His older sister, Natalie Galitzine, appeared in two Hollywood films, including Cecil B. DeMille's King of Kings. Golitzen was Oscar-nominated for his work on Hitchcock's Foreign Correspondent (1940) before Wanger brought Golitzen to work with him at Universal on the film Arabian Nights (1942) for which he earned his first Academy Award nomination. He continued to show his flair for the design of Technicolor films at this studio, and won his first academy award the very next year for Phantom of the Opera (1943). In 1954 Alexander was named Supervising Art Director at Universal, a title he held until his retirement in 1974. Although considered a genius for his work in color films, with his contributions adding considerably to the impact of diverse film subjects, including westerns, musicals, and even the science fiction film, This Island Earth (1955), he was also adept in black & white, earning an Oscar for To Kill a Mockingbird (1962). Golitzen also did some notable work for television series such as The Twilight Zone (1959) and One Step Beyond (1959). He retired on a high note, with his very last work, on the film Earthquake (1974), being Oscar-nominated.