John Meehan (art director)
John Francis " Frenchy " Meehan ( born June 13, 1902 in Tehachapi, California, † May 15, 1963 ) was an American architect, art director and production designer, who three times won an Oscar for Best Production Design.
Life
Meehan studied post-school architecture at the University of Southern California and then in 1935 employees of Paramount Pictures, before he worked 1951-1953 for Columbia Pictures. After first time in 1941 cooperated in I Wanted Wings in the production of a film, he worked until 1962 in the film industry in Hollywood at the scenic features of almost fifty films and television series with.
At the Academy Awards in 1950, he first won an Academy Award for Best Production Design and together with Harry Horner and Emile Kuri for the black and white film The Heiress ( 1949) by William Wyler with Olivia de Havilland, Montgomery Clift and Ralph Richardson in the lead roles. The following year he received at the Academy Awards in 1951 along with Hans Dreier, Sam Comer and Ray Moyer his second Oscar for Best Production Design in Sunset Boulevard (1950), one directed by Billy Wilder film drama starring Gloria Swanson, William Holden and Erich von Stroheim. He received his third and final Oscar again with Kuri 1955 for color film 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea ( 1954), the Richard Fleischer turned on the novel by Jules Verne with Kirk Douglas, James Mason and Paul Lukas.
From the mid- 1950s, Meehan worked increasingly for television and received in 1957 along with John Robert Lloyd, John J. Lloyd, and George Patrick Martin Obzina an Emmy nomination for best art direction for the CBS television series produced by the General Electric Theater ( 1953).
For his achievements in the film industry, he was also posthumously inducted into the Hall of Fame of the Art Director's Guild in 2008.