Harry Oliver | |
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Harry Oliver on the battlefield set of Seventh Heaven in 1927
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Born |
April 4, 1888 Hastings, Minnesota, U.S. |
Died | July 4, 1973 Woodland Hills, California, U.S. |
(aged 85)
Occupation | Art director, artist, humorist |
Nationality | United States |
Period | 1914–1965 |
Genre | early naturalistic cinema; early expressionist cinema; Western humor |
Website | |
klaxo |
Harry Oliver (April 4, 1888 – July 4, 1973) was an American humorist, artist, and Academy Award nominated art director of films from the 1920s and 1930s. Besides his outstanding work in Hollywood, he is now best remembered for his humorous writings about the American Southwest, and his publication (1946–1964) of the Desert Rat Scrap Book, an irregular broadsheet devoted to the Southwest. He was born in Hastings, Minnesota and died in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California.
He is known for his Hollywood work as art director on the films Seventh Heaven (1927) and Street Angel (1928), for which he was nominated for the very first Academy Awards, as well as set design or art direction on the films Ben Hur (1925), Sparrows (1926), Scarface (1932), Viva Villa! (1934), Mark of the Vampire (1935), and The Good Earth (1937).
Harold Griffith Oliver was born in Hastings, Minnesota, April 4, 1888, to Mary Simmons (born in Minnesota) and Frederick William Oliver (born in England). Raised in a Tom Sawyer environment, he associated with trappers, timbermen and steamboat men, and became an expert canoesman, guide, and muskrat hunter while a very young man. His father, Frederick Oliver, ran a general store in pioneer conditions.