Russell A. Gausman
Russell A. Gausman ( born July 4, 1892 in Missouri, † May 20, 1963 in Los Angeles, California ) was a two Oscars excellent American production designer and art director.
Life
Gausman began his career in 1931 when he got a job at Universal Studios. Until his retirement in 1960 he worked for 29 years exclusively for Universal. His first film was the horror film classic Dracula with Bela Lugosi in the title role. He initially worked without attribution in the credits. Only towards the end of the 1930s, his career took ride on, and Gausman was involved in a majority of horror films produced by Universal around Frankenstein, the Mummy and the Invisible. He was also responsible 1942-1946 the Design of twelve films in the Sherlock Holmes film series with Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce in the lead roles.
Since 1942 he had been nominated three times for an Academy Award, his first Oscar got Gausmann 1944 Phantom of the Opera. After he had worked among others in 1950 on the James Stewart movie classic My friend Harvey, he worked during the 1950s repeatedly with director Jack Arnold together, including the B-movie genre classics Came from Outer Space and Tarantula. Another classic film on which he worked, was Orson Welles film noir Touch of Evil. Late in his career he worked on the film comedies Pillow Talk and Operation Petticoat. His most recent films included the Stanley Kubrick epic film Spartacus, for which he was awarded the following year with his second Oscar. Only a few years after his retirement, he died in 1963.