Robert F. Boyle | |
|---|---|
 Boyle in 2009 | |
| Born | Robert Francis Boyle (1909-10-10)October 10, 1909 |
| Died | August 1, 2010(2010-08-01) (aged 100) Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
| Occupation(s) | Art director, production designer |
| Years active | 1933–2010 |
| Spouse | Bess Taffel |
Robert Francis Boyle (October 10, 1909 – August 1, 2010)[1] was an Americanfilmart director andproduction designer. He was nominated for fourAcademy Awards forNorth by Northwest (1959),Gaily, Gaily (1969),Fiddler on the Roof (1971), andThe Shootist (1976), before winning theHonorary Academy Award in 2008. He was also nominated for aPrimetime Emmy Award forThe Red Pony (1973).
Boyle is also known for his work onAlfred Hitchcock'sNorth by Northwest (1959),The Birds (1963), andMarnie (1964). He also was the art director forThe Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming (1966),How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (1967),In Cold Blood (1967), andThe Thomas Crown Affair (1968),Mame (1974), andPrivate Benjamin (1980).
Born inLos Angeles, Boyle trained as anarchitect, graduating from theUniversity of Southern California (USC). When he lost his job in that field during theGreat Depression, Boyle found work in films as anextra.
In 1933 he was hired as a draftsman in theParamount Pictures art department, headed by supervising art directorHans Dreier. Beginning withCecil B. DeMille'sThe Plainsman, Boyle went on to work on a variety of pictures as a sketch artist, draftsman and assistant art director before becoming an art director atUniversal Studios in the early 1940s.
Boyle collaborated several times withAlfred Hitchcock, first as an associate art director forSaboteur (1942) and later as a full-fledged production designer forNorth by Northwest (1959),The Birds (1963), andMarnie (1964). Denied permission to shoot footage onMount Rushmore, Hitchcock turned to Boyle to create realistic replicas of the stone heads.
Boyle abseiled down the monument, photographing its contours in detail, before constructing "just enough to put the actors on so we could get down shots, up shots, side shots, whatever we needed." Almost two decades earlier, Boyle had delivered theStatue of Liberty reproduction that was used in the climactic scene ofSaboteur. ForThe Birds, Boyle was put in charge of the title characters. He later recalled, "We needed to find out which birds we could use best, and finally settled on two types: sea gulls, which were very greedy beasts that would always fly toward the camera if there was a piece of meat, and crows, which had a strange sort of intelligence." Boyle described his relationship with Hitchcock: "It was a meeting of equals: the director who knew exactly what he wanted, and the art director who knew how to get it done."[2]
When directorNorman Jewison failed in his attempts to get the necessarysubmarine that was at the center of hisThe Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming storyline, Boyle built a working model from Styrofoam and fiberglass.[3]
Boyle's other credits includeIt Came from Outer Space,Cape Fear,In Cold Blood,Fiddler on the Roof,Portnoy's Complaint,Winter Kills,W.C. Fields and Me,The Shootist,Private Benjamin,Staying Alive, andTroop Beverly Hills.
During the course of his career, Boyle was nominated four times for theAcademy Award for Best Art Direction, but never won. In 1997 he received theArt Directors Guild's Lifetime Achievement Award, and he was voted anHonorary Academy Award by the Board of Governors of theAcademy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, "in recognition of one of cinema's great careers in art direction," which he received during the80th Academy Awards ceremony on February 24, 2008.[4]
At the age of 98, Boyle became theoldest winner ever of anHonorary Award in the history of the Academy Awards.[citation needed] In ill health and arriving to the ceremony in a wheelchair, Boyle insisted on walking onstage, alongsideNicole Kidman, to receive the honor. He was the subject of theAcademy Award-nominateddocumentary shortThe Man on Lincoln's Nose (2000).[citation needed]
Boyle's wife,Bess Taffel, whose career began in the Yiddish theatre, was aHollywood blacklistee, whose film career ended in 1951 after she was "named" by Leo Townsend, although her husband's career was apparently unharmed. They lived in a house that Bob designed and built in The Hollywood Hills, for their entire marriage.
Unable to have children of their own, they adopted two girls; Emily Rebecca Boyle, in 1956 and Susan Anne Boyle (Licon) in 1959. He also worked at the American Film Institute's Center for Advanced Film Study program in Los Angeles as the Production Design instructor.
A widower since 2000, Boyle died on August 1, 2010, in Los Angeles due to natural causes.[5]
| Year | Association | Category | Project | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1959 | Academy Awards | Best Production Design | North by Northwest | Nominated | |
| 1969 | Gaily, Gaily | Nominated | |||
| 1971 | Fiddler on the Roof | Nominated | |||
| 1976 | The Shootist | Nominated | |||
| 2007 | Honorary Academy Award | Honored | |||
| 1973 | Primetime Emmy Award | Outstanding Art Direction for a Single-Camera Series | The Red Pony | Nominated | |
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| People | |
| Other | |
