Oliver Smith (designer)

Oliver Lemuel Smith ( born February 13, 1918 in Waupun, Wisconsin, † January 23, 1994 in New York City ) was an American set designer and producer on Broadway with occasional trips to the movie musicals of the 1950s.

Life and work

Smith had received his artistic training in the second half of the 1930s and was then pushed to the theater. Since 1942 he is detectable as a stage on Broadway in New York; his specialty were first operetta and musical equipment like Rosalinda, The New Moon, Rhapsody and the Ur - story New York On the Town, which he also produced. As were made of several of these theater in Hollywood, beginning with On the Town, 1949-1959 films, they picked Smith occasionally to rate or let him make the Filmbauten. For his designs for Guys - and Dolls (1955 ) he received, together with his two colleagues, Joseph C. Wright and Howard Bristol, an Oscar nomination.

Despite all this, Smith was always first and foremost a man of the theater. He later paid sometimes also dramatic performances beyond the musical theater. His return to film in the 70s had only guest character. In 1970 he presented the documentary " Bernstein in London: Verdi's Requiem " that, in 1976, he has consulted with the dancers film The Turning Point with Shirley MacLaine and Anne Bancroft active. Almost at the same time (1976 /77) made ​​his Lincoln Center productions of the ballet productions of Giselle, Swan Lake and The Nutcracker for American television were prepared.

Theater work

Unless otherwise specified as a set designer

Filmography ( complete)

As art director