Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1456917
William A. Horning 1904-1959 William Allen Horning was born in Missouri in 1904 and grew up on a ranch in Sanger, California, in the beautiful Central Valley of California. He graduated from UC Berkeley School of Architecture in 1925. After graduation, Horning moved to Santa Barbara and began his architectural career under the mentorship of Lutah Maria Riggs, the first woman in California to be named a fellow of the American Institute of Architects. As a result of the economic depression, construction in Santa Barbara came to a halt, so Bill moved to Los Angeles to work at MGM Studios. He started at MGM as a draftsman and became an assistant to the studio's Supervising Art Director Cedric Gibbons. Together with Gibbons, he received his first Academy Award nomination for Best Art Direction for Conquest (1937). Two years later, he received another nomination for The Wizard of Oz (1939), but the Oscar was awarded to Gone with the Wind. It would be 12 years before his next nomination, for Quo Vadis (1951). Following Gibbons' retirement in 1956, he became MGM Studio's Supervising Art Director. In this role, he received Academy Award nominations for Les Girls and Raintree County in 1957. The week before he died, he received another nomination for Best Art Direction for Gigi (1958) and at the 31st Academy Awards ceremony, he received a posthumous Academy Award. The following year, he received two additional posthumous Oscar nominations Hall of Fame Inductee