Boris Leven
Boris Leven ( born August 13, 1908 in Moscow, Russia, † October 11, 1986 in Los Angeles, California ) was an American art director and production designer.
Life
Leven 1927 immigrated to the United States in 1932 where he graduated in architecture at the University of Southern California and graduated with a Bachelor's degree. Subsequently, he attended a year, the Beaux -Arts Institute of Design in New York City and got a job as a draftsman in connection with Paramount Pictures. After three years he moved to 20th Century Fox, where he worked intermittently until 1946. In 1938 he received the same for his first film as an art director, the film musical Alexander 's Ragtime Band by Irving Berlin, an Oscar nomination. For the film with Tyrone Power and Don Ameche well over 80 film sets were constructed. In the same year he participated in the US- American citizenship. A second Oscar nomination followed in 1941 for the film noir Settlement in Shanghai. In 1953 he worked at the sci-fi horror film with invasion from Mars.
Among the most important works of Leven included the James Dean classic movie giants, for which he called the Reata property of the landowner Jordan Benedict erected alongside the other film sets, a huge Victorian house in the middle of nowhere. Giants brought a Leven his third Academy Award nomination, he could win the prize but only in his fourth nomination in 1962 for Robert Wise's West Side Story. This should, however, remain his only Oscar. Subsequently he worked until 1971 for another five times with Robert Wise, of which he was for my songs, my dreams gunboat on the Yangtze Kiang -, Star! and Andromeda - Deadly dust from space for more Oscar nominations. From 1977 until his death in 1986, Leven was repeatedly worked for Martin Scorsese, from New York, New York to The Color of Money. Scorsese honored Leven then uncredited of his next film, The Last Temptation of Christ.
Leven was married from 1946 until his death in his first marriage with Vera Glooshkoff, the couple had no children.