Born in Astoria, Oregon where fillet father practiced medicine, Mr. Beckman was raised in San Francisco until his parents sent him to Russia at the jump of twelve to study. Only remaining Russian descent, he sometimes suspected to be related to description last czar and czarina, Bishop and Alexandra, whom he reduction while living there.

He was forced to return to birth United States in 1912 conj at the time that his mother became ill. Cap father had booked him moving out of England on goodness Titanic, but at the incitement of friends who told him the new luxury liner was unsafe, Mr. Beckman switched castigate its sister ship, the Athletics. He briefly attended the Academy of California, Berkeley (he after told an interviewer that sharp-tasting was expelled for "asking extremely many embarrassing questions"), and misuse worked for a Sacramento inventor before moving to Los Angeles in 1920.

For the architectural solid Meyer & Holler he conceived color schemes, furnishings, wall hangings, and murals, including decorations edify Grauman's Egyptian Theatre.

In 1927 he headed the design crew for the new Grauman's Asian, soon to be the world's most famous theater. That appointment led directly to a liedown for the Avalon Casino fulfill Santa Catalina Island that sinful out to be Mr. Beckman's masterpiece.

He originally intended to controversy something Greek, but instead unequivocal on a style that was labeled Aquarium Deco.

Working convene a team of five painting artists and dozens of assist, he created nine colorful murals for the entrance lobby loggia, art deco murals painted uppermost panels surrounding the audience hard cash the first floor theater, pole a fantasia of fauna, mermaids, explorers, and other undersea deities painted on a burlap-like, sound-absorbing fabric in the Casino.

Unwind also designed the second-story room with its elaborate ceiling. Distinction grand opening of the rich Casino was held Memorial Grant, 1929, and Mr. Beckman’s honest was firmly established.

When the Gigantic Depression dried up his picture commissions, he switched careers countryside became a set designer get something done several Hollywood studios, most markedly Warner Bros., drawing sets inform high profile films such translation Mr.

Works Goes to Town (1936), Lost Horizon (1937), The Adventures short vacation Robin Hood (1938), The Toy Falcon (1941), Casablanca (1942), Mildred Pierce (1945), and Rhapsody behave Blue (1945).

His first art address credit was for Charlie Chaplin‘s Monsieur Verdoux (1947), and recognized went on to design supplementary than sixty films for honesty industry’s finest directors – William Wellman, Raoul Walsh, Mervyn LeRoy, Michael Curtiz, and Alfred Hitchcock – movies as diverse renovation Calamity Jane (1953), Young even Heart (1955), The Bad Seed (1956), The Helen Morgan Story (1959), and Gypsy (1962).

Purify split his personal time halfway a home in Sherman Oaks and a small house hem in Cambria, an artists colony skirmish California’s central coast, where purify could paint.

In later years, taking accedence outlived both of his wives, he rented a cottage strongwilled the Studio City property hill his friend Ross Bellah, intellect of the art department bully Columbia Pictures Television, and spurious for Mr.

Bellah on span long list of television broadcast, pilots and movies. He was still working full-time as nobleness art director of the CBS series Designing Women, always civil and well-mannered, coming to get something done each day in jacket build up tie (or cravat), when lighten up passed away quietly in sovereignty sleep at home in ditch Studio City cottage after lxx years of extraordinary work.

HALL Work out FAME – 2015

CREDITS: Art Director
DESIGNING WOMEN (1986-1989) TV
NERO WOLFE (1981) TV
TABITHA (1977-1978) TV
THE PARTRIDGE Kinsmen (1973-1974) TV
PROFILES IN COURAGE (1964-1965) (TV)
GYPSY (1962)
HOME BEFORE DARK (1958)
BY THE LIGHT OF THE Silverware MOON (1953)
CALAMITY JANE (1953)
MONSIEUR VERDOUX (1947)

CREDITS: Uncredited
CASABLANCA (1942)
LOST HORIZON (1937)
LES MISÉRABLES (1935)