Served as executive director of the Art Directors Guild for 27 years
Production designer Gene Allen, a former three-term president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences (1983-1985) and an Oscar winner, died on Wednesday (October 7) from natural causes. He was 97. He lived in Newport Beach, Calif.
Allen received his Art Direction Oscar for his work on My Fair Lady (1965) and received two Oscar other nominations–for A Star is Born (1955) and Les Girls (1958). In 1997 he received a Special Achievement Award from the Art Directors Guild (ADG, IATSE LOCAL 800), where he served as executive director for 27 years (1970-1997). He had also served as a VP of IATSE. He was a member of the Directors Guild of America, having worked as second unit director as well as production designer for George Cukor on A Star is Born.
Scott Roth, executive director of the ADG, who succeeded Allen in 1997, said, “Gene Allen displayed verve and brio in his 27 years leading the Art Directors Guild. Add to this his service as an IATSE vice president, president of the Motion Picture Academy, and his multiple Oscar nominations (and win) for Art Direction and you’re looking at a protean career unlikely soon to be matched. He will be sorely missed by his many friends (including me) in the labor and entertainment communities.”
Mimi Gramatky, president of the ADG, added, “Painting until almost the last day of his life, Gene was a consummate artist, leader and award-winner who made an enormous contribution to the field of production design and art direction, for which we are eternally grateful. We will miss him very much.”
Other production designer credits included At Long Last Love (1975), The Cheyenne Social Club (1970) and The Chapman Report (1962). His art director credits included Let’s Make Love, A Breath of Scandal and Heller in Pink Tights (all in 1960), Merry Andrew (1958), Les Girls (1957), Back from Eternity and Bhowani Junction (both 1956).
He was hired by Warner Bros. art department in 1936 as an apprentice. When he was laid off he followed his father, becoming a cop in the Los Angeles Police Department. With the start of World War II he enlisted in the U.S. Navy. After the war he found work teaching at art colleges, eventually getting back into Hollywood when he was rehired by Warner Bros, as a sketch artist.
He recently said, “As long as I can remember, I loved the feel of a soft-leaded pencil applied to a drawing pad.”
Allen was a recognized water color painter whose work was exhibited in many galleries, including at the Art Directors Guild’s own Gallery 800 in North Hollywood last year. He was also an avid sailor, owning various boats.
He is survived by his wife Iris and sons Pat and Mike. Details of a memorial service will be announced later.
Review: Writer-Director Coralie Fargeat’s “The Substance”
In its first two hours, "The Substance" is a well-made, entertaining movie. Writer-director Coralie Fargeat treats audiences to a heavy dose of biting social commentary on ageism and sexism in Hollywood, with a spoonful of sugar- and sparkle-doused body horror.
But the film's deliciously unhinged, blood-soaked and inevitably polarizing third act is what makes it unforgettable.
What begins as a dread-inducing but still relatively palatable sci-fi flick spirals deeper into absurdism and violence, eventually erupting — quite literally — into a full-blown monster movie. Let the viewer decide who the monster is.
Fargeat — who won best screenplay at this year's Cannes Film Festival — has been vocal about her reverence for "The Fly" director David Cronenberg, and fans of the godfather of body horror will see his unmistakable influence. But "The Substance" is also wholly unique and benefits from Fargeat's perspective, which, according to the French filmmaker, has involved extensive grappling with her own relationship to her body and society's scrutiny.
"The Substance" tells the story of Elisabeth Sparkle, a famed aerobics instructor with a televised show, played by a powerfully vulnerable Demi Moore. Sparkle is fired on her 50th birthday by a ruthless executive — a perfectly cast Dennis Quaid, who nails sleazy and gross.
Feeling rejected by a town that once loved her and despairing over her bygone star power, Sparkle learns from a handsome young nurse about a black-market drug that promises to create a "younger, more beautiful, more perfect" version of its user. Though she initially tosses the phone number in the trash, she soon fishes it out in a desperate panic and places an order.
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