Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/1332040
1 1 4 P E R S P E C T I V E | J A N U A R Y / F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 1 M I L E S T O N E S Norm Newberry May 18, 1942 – December 1, 2020 B Y M I C H A E L B A U G H , P R O D U C T I O N D E S I G N E R I've known Norm Newberry for nearly fifty years. It probably should have been even longer, since we were the same age and went to rival Los Angeles high schools (he to Loyola, me to Notre Dame). I'm sure we went to a lot of football games together, sitting on opposite sides of the field. We didn't officially meet, however, until we both ended up in the Universal Art Department in 1973. He has been my friend ever since, throughout a long career in which he continually excelled in whatever challenges he undertook. He was a gentle man, with an infectious laugh and rich sense of humor, always willing to help other designers and take joy in their successes. Norm was born in Hollywood to Art Director William Newberry and his wife Frances. He grew up visiting his father on the sets of Abbott and Costello and Francis the Mule films, as well as a long string of mostly forgettable Westerns. As a young boy, he met the studio's Supervising Art Director, Alex Golitzen, and I think a love of filmmaking found its way into his DNA at that early age. His father also worked as a licensed architect, so Norm followed that path, graduating with a bachelor of architecture degree from the University of Notre Dame. After college, (Class of '65), he went to work as a Set Designer at Universal, working under the studio's Art Director in charge of the drafting room. Those were the Viet Nam years, and Norm had to leave the movies for three years of military service, putting his architecture training to work with the U.S. Naval Civil Engineer Corps (the Seabees). When he returned to the Universal drafting room in 1971, the studio was a prolific television factory, often churning out as many as twenty- five series at the same time. Alex Golitzen's successor, Bill DeCinces, established a system, which had not been tried before, in which every television production was assigned an Assistant Art Director to coordinate the workflow. Norm, a star in the drafting room, was quickly promoted and for several years in the mid-1970s, Norm (and I) assisted a rotating roster of Art Directors on series such as Kojack, Columbo, The Rockford Files and a long roster of television movies. Before long, continuing his habit of excellence, he was given his own show to design, the pilot for a series called The Oregon Trail with a notably demanding director, Boris Sagal. Sagal could not make sense out of a ground plan showing how a wagon train would circle to encamp for the night, and a sketch by one of the studio's talented staff illustrators was even less help. Norm racked his brain and finally took the existing ground plan, added a few perspective extensions to each wagon and tent, and created a very simple "birds'-eye view" drawing. "That's what I wanted all along," said NORM NEWBERRY ACCEPTING A LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD AT THE 2018 ART DIRECTORS GUILD AWARDS. C O N T I N U E D O N P A G E 1 1 8