Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/679317
P E R S P E C T I V E | M AY / J U N E 2 0 1 6 3 editorial REMEMBERING GENE ALLEN by Michael Baugh, Editor Gene Allen, the man who has been called the most influential—if not always the most beloved—Production Designer in the history of our craft, died at 97 years old last October 7 of natural causes in his home in Newport Beach, CA. In this issue, PERSPECTIVE steps back and takes a look at his truly historic career. It has chosen to describe Gene through the eyes of a non-designer, a historian who interviewed him repeatedly over a six-year period. The result of those interviews is a 1500-page annotated oral history in the Motion Picture Academy's ® Margaret Herrick Library. A short excerpt from the introduction to this history begins on page 36. Gene was much more than a Production Designer. Very successful as an Illustrator, he was one of the organizers who brought "sketch artists" into the IATSE, and became that local's president. Promoted—on one film—from Illustrator to Assistant Art Director to Production Designer, he received an Oscar ® nomination...on his very first screen credit. As a union business agent, he made himself so valuable to the International office that he was appointed to a vice presidency and made head of the West Coast office. There were two corner suites in the IA's Sherman Oaks office building; one belonged to President Walter Diehl, and one belonged to Gene Allen and then-tiny Local 876. After years representing his craft on the Board of Governors, he was elected President of the Motion Picture Academy, the only Art Director ever to hold that office...indeed, to this date, the only member of any below-the-line craft. He used to tell stories of some Academy Board members sputtering and aghast that the Academy could stoop to electing someone from that end of the industry. George Cukor made Gene his second unit director on A Star Is Born. Gene, as the film's Production Designer, had planned and storyboarded the opening sequence, shot at night in front of the Shrine Auditorium in downtown Los Angeles. When the time came, that entire sequence was directed by Gene Allen, and so he became a member of the Director's Guild. On The Chapman Report, the screenplay based on Irving Wallace's novel wasn't working out, so Mr. Cukor gave Gene a portable dressing room on stage and had him rewrite the entire film as it was being shot, and as Gene was still supervising its design. He became a member of the Writers Guild, too. In his time, the Art Directors Society was not an easy club to join. Ken Adam, the only British Designer to receive a knighthood, tells of years fighting Gene before he could work here, and the title Visual Consultant was created specifically for him to avoid calling him the Production Designer he really was. I, myself, came by the office every month—check in hand—for two full years, and was always told to wait. Women, particularly, have accused him of keeping them out of the Society, but in honesty, Gene was an equal-opportunity membership-denier. And, in more complete honesty, he was acting just as the Society membership wanted him to act, restricting membership to a small group so there would be more work for all. Many members of the Guild continue to hold that belief today. In the occasional unguarded moment, he would describe his role in the Guild as that of "benevolent dictator." He was, in truth, much more benevolent than not. He loved movies. He loved our crafts, and he is responsible for much of the visibility and influence we have today. He was my teacher, he was my friend, and I will never forget his wicked smile.