Iconic production designer Robert F. Boyle, a four-time Academy Award nominee for art direction for his work on “North by Northwest,” “Gaily, Gaily,” “The Shootist” and “Fiddler on the Roof,” and recipient of an honorary Oscar in 2008 for his work on these and more than 86 other motion pictures, died on Aug. 1 of natural causes after a two-day stay at Cedars Sinai Hospital. He was 100.
In 1997 Boyle was voted a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Art Directors Guild. In 2001 he was further honored with the Hollywood Production Designer of the Year Award by the Hollywood Film Festival. Recently he was given a tribute by the American Cinematheque and the Art Directors Guild with a screening at the Egyptian Theatre of two of his designed films, “The Wolf Man” (1941) and “Gaily, Gaily” (1969). In 1973 he was nominated for an Emmy for “The Red Pony.”
Among his other major motion picture credits as a production designer are “The Birds,” “Winter Kills,” “The Best Little Whorehouse In Texas,” “Private Benjamin,” “Portnoy’s Complaint,” “The Thomas Crown Affair,” “In Cold Blood,” “How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying,” “The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming,” “The Shootist” and the original “Cape Fear.”
Boyle worked on numerous films for Alfred Hitchcock and Norman Jewison as well as for such other famed directors as Tom Mankiewicz, Penny Marshall, Joe Dante, Sylvester Stallone, Hal Ashby, Arthur Hiller and Don Siegel. Until he was hospitalized he was a Distinguished Lecturer at the American Film Institute Conservatory in Los Angeles where he was considered the “guiding light” of the Institute’s production design department.
Boyle is the subject of Daniel Raim’s Oscar-nominated documentary, “The Man On Lincoln’s Nose” (2000), which refers to Hitchcock’s “North By Northwest” film that Boyle designed. He also is a prominent subject in Raim’s newest documentary about production designers, “Something’s Gonna Live,” that includes participation by three other deceased production designers, Henry Bumstead, Albert Nozaki and Harold Michelson.
Boyle was born October 10, 1909, in Los Angeles and was a graduate of the School of Architecture of the University of Southern California (1933). He began his art direction career that year at Paramount Studios moving from there to Universal Studios. In 1941 Hitchcock chose him to be the art director on his “Saboteur” film. He served as a member of the Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences for nine years and was a two-term president of the Art Directors Guild.
Memorial services are pending for Boyle who is survived by two daughters: Emily Boyle-Biddle of Hollywood, CA, and Susan Licon of Toledo, Oregon, and three grandchildren. Boyle’s wife, Bess Taffel Boyle, died in 1999.
Apple and Google Face UK Investigation Into Mobile Browser Dominance
Apple and Google aren't giving consumers a genuine choice of mobile web browsers, a British watchdog said Friday in a report that recommends they face an investigation under new U.K. digital rules taking effect next year.
The Competition and Markets Authority took aim at Apple, saying the iPhone maker's tactics hold back innovation by stopping rivals from giving users new features like faster webpage loading. Apple does this by restricting progressive web apps, which don't need to be downloaded from an app store and aren't subject to app store commissions, the report said.
"This technology is not able to fully take off on iOS devices," the watchdog said in a provisional report on its investigation into mobile browsers that it opened after an initial study concluded that Apple and Google effectively have a chokehold on "mobile ecosystems."
The CMA's report also found that Apple and Google manipulate the choices given to mobile phone users to make their own browsers "the clearest or easiest option."
And it said that the a revenue-sharing deal between the two U.S. Big Tech companies "significantly reduces their financial incentives" to compete in mobile browsers on Apple's iOS operating system for iPhones.
Both companies said they will "engage constructively" with the CMA.
Apple said it disagreed with the findings and said it was concerned that the recommendations would undermine user privacy and security.
Google said the openness of its Android mobile operating system "has helped to expand choice, reduce prices and democratize access to smartphones and apps" and that it's "committed to open platforms that empower consumers."
It's the latest move by regulators on both sides of the Atlantic to crack down on the... Read More