Richard Sylbert
Publicity Photo of Richard Sylbert
Born	(1928-04-16)April 16, 1928 Brooklyn, New York
Died	March 23, 2002(2002-03-23) (aged 73) Los Angeles, California
Occupation	Production designer art director producer
Nationality	American
Years active	1953–2002
Spouse	Carol Godshalk ​ (m. 1951⁠–⁠1967)​ Susanna Moore ​ (m. 1973⁠–⁠1978)​ Sharmagne Leland-St. John ​ ​ (m. 1991)​
Children	5
Relatives	Paul Sylbert (twin brother)

Richard Sylbert (April 16, 1928 – March 23, 2002) was an Americanproduction designer andart director, primarily forfeature films.

Sylbert was born inBrooklyn, New York, to Samuel and Lily (Lazell) Sylbert, and was the twin brother of Oscar-winning production designerPaul Sylbert. Richard fought in theKorean War^[1] and attended theTyler School of Art atTemple University inElkins Park, Pennsylvania.^[2] His grandfather, Ribac, was a journalist in his nativeRomania before immigrating to the United States.

Sylbert began his career in the early days of television, designing productions ofHamlet (1953) andRichard II (1954) for theHallmark Hall of Fame. His first film credit wasPatterns (1956), a big screen adaptation of anEmmy Award-winning teleplay byRod Serling. He went on to designBaby Doll,A Face in the Crowd,The Fugitive Kind,Murder, Inc.,Splendor in the Grass,Walk on the Wild Side,Long Day's Journey into Night,The Manchurian Candidate,The Pawnbroker,Lilith,Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?,The Graduate,Rosemary's Baby,Catch-22,Carnal Knowledge,Chinatown,Shampoo,Reds,Frances,The Cotton Club,Tequila Sunrise,Dick Tracy,The Bonfire of the Vanities,Carlito's Way,Mulholland Falls,My Best Friend's Wedding, andTrapped. He worked multiple times with directorsRoman Polanski,Elia Kazan,Mike Nichols, andWarren Beatty.^[3]

Robert Evans named Sylbert his successor when he relinquished his position as production chief atParamount Pictures in 1975. Sylbert oversawThe Bad News Bears,Nashville, andDays of Heaven before being replaced in 1978.^[1]

Sylbert was nominated for theAcademy Award forBest Art Direction six times and won twice, forWho's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? andDick Tracy.^[4] He won theBAFTA Award for Best Production Design forDick Tracy. He was nominated for anEmmy for his production design of the set for the long-running television sitcomCheers. In 2000, Sylbert was honored with theArt Directors Guild Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2002, Sylbert was to receive theHollywood Film Festival's Life Achievement Award. His widow gave the committee permission to name the award after him in perpetuity and that year it was given toHarold Michelson, his longtime art director and colleague.

Sylbert died ofcancer at the age of 73 at theMotion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital inWoodland Hills, California. At the time of his death, Sylbert was married to Native American poetSharmagne Leland-St. John, mother of one of his daughters, Daisy Alexandra Sylbert-Torres, a costume designer andEcho Park boutique owner. He had three sons, Douglas, Jon and Mark, with his first wife, Carol Godshalk, and another daughter, Lulu, with writerSusanna Moore. Lulu acted as a child, playingPaul Le Mat's half-alien daughter inStrange Invaders.

• LoBrutto, Vincent (2002).The Filmmaker's Guide to Production Design. New York: Allworth Press.ISBN 978-1-58115-224-1.
• Sylbert, Richard; Townsend, Sylvia;Leland-St. John-Sylbert, Sharmagne (2006).Designing Movies: Portrait of a Hollywood Artist. Westport, CT: Praeger.ISBN 978-0-275-98690-2.
• Whitlock, Cathy (2010).Designs on Film: A Century of Hollywood Art Direction. New York: Harper Collins.ISBN 978-0-06-088122-1.

• Richard Sylbert atIMDb
• Richard Sylbert
• NY Times

• Best Production Design Academy Award winners
• Best Production Design BAFTA Award winners
• American production designers
• American art directors
• American people of Romanian-Jewish descent
• 1928 births
• 2002 deaths
• Deaths from cancer in California
• American identical twins
• Identical twin males
• Erasmus Hall High School alumni

• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Use mdy dates from December 2019
• Use American English from December 2019
• All Wikipedia articles written in American English