Marlene Dietrich Grandson J. Michael Riva, Robert Clatworthy, and Harper Goff: Art Directors Guild Hall of Fame 2014
Production Designers Robert Clatworthy, Harper Goff, and J. Michael Riva will be posthumously inducted into the Art Directors Guild Hall of Fame at the 18th Art Directors Guild Awards ceremony, to be held on Feb. 8 at the Beverly Hilton Hotel.
J. Michael Riva
J. Michael Riva (1948–2012), grandson of Marlene Dietrich (The Blue Angel, Shanghai Express, A Foreign Affair), was production designer for Stuart Rosenberg / Robert Redford’s 1980 socially conscious drama Brubaker. Later on, Redford hired Riva as the art director for Ordinary People, also released in 1980. Riva’s other production design credits include the Lethal Weapon movies starring Mel Gibson and Danny Glover; A Few Good Men (1992), with Tom Cruise, Jack Nicholson, and Demi Moore; The Pursuit of Happyness (2006), with Will Smith; Spider-Man 3 (2007), with Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst, and the 2012 reboot The Amazing Spider-Man, with Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone; Jon Favreau’s Iron Man (2008) and Iron Man 2 (2010), with Robert Downey Jr and Gwyneth Paltrow; and Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained (2012), starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Christoph Waltz, and Jamie Foxx.
J. Michael Riva received an Academy Award nomination for Steven Spielberg’s The Color Purple (1985), starring Whoopi Goldberg, Oprah Winfrey, and Margaret Avery. In 2007, he also won an Emmy for The 79th Annual Academy Awards. Besides, Riva was one of the screenwriters nominated by the Writers Guild of America for Delbert Mann’s Lily in Winter, starring Natalie Cole, in 1995 and 1996.
Robert Clatworthy
Robert Clatworthy (1911-1992) began his career at Paramount, transferring to Universal’s art department in the early ’40s. Among his credits at that studio are Robert Siodmak’s classic film noir Phantom Lady (1944), starring Franchot Tone and Ella Raines; and the Deanna Durbin star vehicles Christmas Holiday (1944), Lady on a Train (1945), and Because of Him (1946).
In the ’50s and ’60s, Clatworthy collaborated with the likes of Douglas Sirk (Written on the Wind), Orson Welles (Touch of Evil), Alfred Hitchcock (Psycho), and Stanley Kramer (Ship of Fools, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner), besides working on several Disney projects, e.g., Pollyanna (1960), The Parent Trap (1961), and the television series Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color.
Robert Clatworthy was nominated for five Academy Awards (all shared with collaborators): Psycho (1960), starring Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh, and Vera Miles; That Touch of Mink (1962), starring Cary Grant and Doris Day; Inside Daisy Clover (1965), starring Natalie Wood, Robert Redford, and Christopher Plummer; Ship of Fools (1965), starring Vivien Leigh, Simone Signoret, Lee Marvin, and Oskar Werner; and Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (1967), starring Katharine Hepburn, Spencer Tracy, and Sidney Poitier. Clatworthy and collaborator Joseph Kish won in the Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White, for Ship of Fools.
Harper Goff
Harper Goff (1911-1993) became a set decorator for Warner Bros. in the ’30s. Among his credits at that studio are Max Reinhardt and William Dieterle’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1935), with James Cagney, Dick Powell, and Olivia de Havilland; Michael Curtiz’s The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936), with de Havilland and Errol Flynn; Howard Hawks’ Sergeant York (1941), with Gary Cooper and Joan Leslie; and Curtiz’s Best Picture Oscar winner Casablanca (1942), with Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, and Paul Henreid.
At the Disney studios in the ’50s, Goff – without screen credit – worked on Richard Fleischer’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954), designing both the exterior of the Nautilus and every set within the submarine, in addition to some of the film’s visual effects. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea won Academy Awards for Best Color Art Direction-Set Decoration and Best Special Effects.
According to the Art Directors Guild’s press release, Harper Goff was also one of Disney’s first Imagineers “and contributed heavily to the concept art for what is now Disneyland, including Main Street U.S.A. and the Jungle Cruise, as well as working on EPCOT Center, the World Showcase, and several other Walt Disney World theme parks around the world.”
Art Directors Guild Hall of Fame inductees
Previous Art Directors Guild Hall of Fame inductees, which are given only posthumously, are Preston Ames, Robert Boyle, William S. Darling, Alfred Junge, Alexander Golitzen, Albert Heschong, Eugène Lourié, John Box, Hilyard Brown, Malcolm F. Brown, Wilfred Buckland, Henry Bumstead, Edward Carfagno, Carroll Clark, Richard Day, John DeCuir Sr., Hans Dreier, Bob Keene, Cedric Gibbons, and Stephen Goosson.
Also: Anton Grot, Stephen Grimes, Ted Haworth, Dale Hennesy, Harry Horner, Richard MacDonald, Joseph McMillan “Mac” Johnson, Romain Johnston, Boris Leven, John Meehan, William Cameron Menzies, Harold Michelson, Van Nest Polglase, Ferdinando Scarfiotti, Jan Scott, Edward S. Stephenson, Alexandre Trauner, James Trittipo, and Lyle Wheeler.
2014 Art Directors Guild Awards
Nominations for the 2014 Art Directors Guild Awards will be announced on January 9, 2014. On awards night, the ADG will announce the winners in ten competitive categories for theatrical films, television productions, commercials, and music videos. The 2014 Lifetime Achievement Award will go to production designer and art director Rick Carter.