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.
Review: Director/Co-Writer Kyle Hausmann-Stokes’ “My Dead Friend Zoe”
Even for a film titled "My Dead Friend Zoe," the opening scenes of Kyle Hausmann-Stokes' movie have a startling rhythm. First, two female American soldiers are riding in a Humvee in Afghanistan 2016 blasting Rihanna's "Umbrella." They are clearly friends, and more concerned with the music coming through loudly than enemy fire. Zoe (Natalie Morales) tells Merit (Sonequa Martin-Green) tells that if they ever set foot in "some dopy group therapy," to please kill her. Cut to years later, they're sitting in a counseling meeting for veterans and Morales' character has a sour look at her face. She turns to her friend: "Did we survive the dumbest war of all time just to sit here all broken and kumbaya and ouchie-my-feelings?" But after this rush of cavalier soldiering and bitter sarcasm comes a sobering moment. Merit blinks her eyes and is instead staring at an empty chair. Zoe isn't there at all. "My Dead Friend Zoe," co-starring Morgan Freeman and Ed Harris, confronts a dark reality of post-combat struggle with as much humor and playfulness as it does trauma and sorrow. It comes from a real place, and you can tell. Hausmann-Stoke is himself a veteran and "My Dead Friend Zoe" is dedicated to a pair of his platoon mates who killed themselves. The opening titles note the film was "inspired by a true story." Audience disinterest has characterized many, though not all, of the films about the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and the output has pretty much dried up over the years. "My Dead Friend Zoe" feels like it was made with an awareness of that trend and as a rebuke to it. This is an often breezy and funny movie for what, on paper, is a difficult and dark story. But the comic tone of "My Dead Friend Zoe" is, itself, a spirited rejection to not just the heaviness... Read More