Harry Oliver (April 4, 1888 - July 4, 1973) is an American artist, actress, and nominated director of the Academy Award films of the 1920s and 1930s. In addition to his remarkable work in Hollywood, he is now best remembered for his amusing writings about Southwest America, and its publication (1946-1964) from the Guntur Rat Gila Book, an irregular broad sheets intended for Southwest.. He was born in Hastings, Minnesota and died in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California.
He is known for his work in Hollywood as art director on the 7th Heaven films (1927) and Street Street (1928), where he was nominated for the first Academy Awards, as well as organizing design or art direction in the movies of Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1925), Sparrows (1926), Scarface Viva Villa! (1934), Mark of the Vampire (1935), and The Good Earth (1937).
Video Harry Oliver
Life and his works
Initial years
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 Tom Sawyer's neighborhood, he was associated with trappers, carpenters and steamboat men, and became a canoeist, guide, and muskrat hunter when he was very young. His father, Frederick Oliver, runs a general store in pioneering conditions.
Oliver's formal education is small. She said, "I attended public school in Eau Claire, Wisconsin until fourth grade, that's when my father told me to work in a small print shop in the hope that I would learn to spell."
After working as a bill-poster for Ringling Brothers circus, Oliver moved with his family to Puget Sound, Washington in 1909. He worked as a beautiful painter for the first Seattle World Exposition where he met famous hat maker John B. Stetson, who gave Oliver a hat typical black Stetson.
Harry's parents soon settled on a chicken farm in Santa Cruz, California where Oliver worked as a burro-driver for the US Forest Service. In 1910 Oliver returned to Minnesota to marry Alice Elizabeth Fernlund, "a fairly small bear bear Minnesota bear" who later gave birth to two daughters, Amy Fern and Mary Alice. Oliver and Alice return to the chicken farm in Santa Cruz. Oliver worked odd jobs, including a beautiful artist with a small theater. "One day a film company came to town with the opening, and I got the job."
Hollywood Years
Harry Oliver... is known for his atmospheric and controlled settings. Even German expressionists learn a little from Harry Oliver (and not the other way around). One of Oliver's specialties is to recreate the exceptional exterior location at the rear...
Oliver worked on various Hollywood productions from around 1911 to 1941, up from a painter who arranged to arrange a wardrobe for art directors. A full note of all the films may not be available, but here is a partial list:
- 1914: The Sparrow
- 1919: Behind the Door ; The Grim Game
- 1920: Down Home ; Below Surface
- 1921: World Face
- 1924: The Hill Billy alias The Hillbilly
- 1925: Little Annie Rooney ; Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ
- 1926: The Black Pirate ; Sparrow
- 1927: Gaucho ; Heaven to 7
- 1928: Street Angels
- 1929: Sunny Side Up ; River ; Lucky Star ; They Must See Paris
- 1930: Liliom ; Lightnin '; Song o 'My Heart ; City Girl
- 1932: Mad Film ; Scarface
- 1933: White Lady ; Tillie and Gus ; Dancing Lady
- 1934: Band Plays On ; Peck's Bad Boy ; Paw-Cats ; David Harum ; Viva Villa!
- 1935: Vanessa: The Love Story ; Mark of the Vampire
- 1937: Create Desire ; The Good Earth ; California People
- 1938: Human Heart ; Little Orphan Annie
- 1941: The Outlaw
Leo Carrillo informed me that the European offices of M.G.M. Rent out their Viva Villa copies to all the countries of the world. They rent movies when people in a country get "REVOLUTION HUNGRY."
Architecture
Designing and building structures occupies a portion of Oliver's professional and personal life. For some illustrations, see the Harry Oliver architecture page.
Oliver built a number of adobe homes for himself and his family, both because he liked the aesthetic effect, and because the building materials were so cheap. The first is La Ballona Rancho (named after nearby Ballona Creek), built in early 1917 near the old Palms movie studio. In 1980 it was still standing at the corner of National and Exposition Blvd. in Los Angeles.
As a host at Borrego Springs (see below), Oliver built his Rancho Borego house from 1930 - "a real first class residence, a long stay in Spain" and "definitely a credit to the valley" according to the local newspaper. It was still standing in 2002, "not far from the Pegleg Monument, but I will warn you now, the current owner does not take to the intruder, and does not want anyone poking around the old place. [3]
Moving to San Juan Capistrano in the late 1930s, where he runs a post-commercial merchant store after his retirement from Hollywood, he may have built another adobe house for himself, but documentation about this is very rare. And when he finally moved to Thousand Palms, California, he built his famous Old Fort Oliver, "as old as a hill," because that's where I got adobe. "
House dobe fireproof, if built properly, and one high level; earthquake resistance, dust proof, sound proof evidence, hot and cold evidence, rats and termites, oh, and yes, bullet proof and almost evidence against bad designs, due to wall thickness and damned if they do not take more character with age.
In addition to his work on film sets, Oliver's famous professional design dates back to 1920 and beyond. The Willing-Spadena Witch House (1921), "probably the best example of Storybook Style" [5], without two windows or similar angles, was originally built on the location of Irvin Willat Film Studio in Culver City, then moved to Beverly Hills in 1934 and moved to a private residence.
Oliver's other design is the original Van de Kamp Bakery windmill, the corporate symbol of the company. It was built in many Willat Studio films around 1921, then moved about 200 feet (61 m) south of Beverly Drive on Western Blvd. The design is reproduced in a widespread bakery cottage around Southern California. Very few of these survive now.
Family members Lawry's Foods and Van de Kamp Bakery decided to build a restaurant on the corner of Boyce and Los Feliz in Hollywood. They commissioned a design from Oliver, who built the Storybook Style building assisted by studio filmmakers. The Tam O'Shanter Inn opened in June 1922 and was a great success. The owner said, "Every piece of wood used in this structure is thrown into the first fire with the result that we never paint it and it becomes more beautiful as the years go by." (L.L.Frank to B.Stohler) It has since been renovated and renamed Great Scot.
In 1935, Oliver became engaged to designing, directing and producing Gold Gulch, the largest concession at the San Diego World Expo (California International Fair). Gold Gulch is a 21-acre western mining camp (85,000 m 2 ) and a replica of a ghost town that no doubt inspires Knotts Berry Farm Ghost Town, which Oliver consulted but was not formally involved with him.
In 1946-1947, Oliver designed and oversaw the construction of the Arab Night Stage at the National Date Festival venue in Indio, California. Archived July 14, 2007, at the Wayback Machine. Ã, Production Gaudy has been staged in faux-Baghdad this fantasiland since 1948 until now.
Family life
From his family, Oliver said, "My sister Amy Silver died while giving birth to twins, my other sister Francis is a lady with a bright brown eyed news in the past {circa World War I}.My older brother Fred is a Western Auto sales buyer for years. "
In 1910, Oliver traveled from California to Minnesota to marry Alice Elizabeth Fernlund (1896? -1935) who gave birth to two daughters, Amy Fern and Mary Alice. When Oliver lived in the desert in 1929 (see below) he spent a lot of time there, as well as in a remote location for his film work. This appointment from his home in Los Angeles caused great tension at the wedding, which seems to have ended around 1929.
Oliver moved back to the Palms house after the death of Alice Oliver of tuberculosis (age 39) on January 9, 1935, and raised two daughters with a succession of housekeepers. He soon met Ruth Dayton while involved in the San Diego World's Fair project (see below). "He consoled Harry from the start - backed up in the burro down a narrow, winding road to the 'Gold Gulch'." Ruth and Oliver were married in San Diego on July 27, 1935; he was 29 years old, he was 47 years old. "But Harry soon learns that Ruth is a little too fond of booze... which produces a brief marriage."
In 1936-1937 Oliver decided he should spend more time with his daughters. He pulled them out of school and together they traveled throughout California, visited all missions, the construction site of the Golden Gate Bridge, many places of Gold Rush, "and Harry kept his daughter busy writing a history thesis about everything they saw."
In 1941, daughters grew up and married their own children, and Oliver left Tinseltown for good, moving to Thousand Palms, California where he built Old Fort Oliver (see below). Her daughter's family spends a lot of time in the Citadel; some descendants, like Betty Jo's granddaughter, tell the story of "growing" happily there.
Year of the desert rat I
Oliver appears to have begun to adopt his Rat Desert persona in 1916, when he was introduced to life in California Borrego Valley (which he insisted on Borego's spelling), and with the informal establishment of Pegleg Smith Liar's Club, which comprises the Los Angeles desert crowd and the Anza residential area -Borrego. In the following decades, Hollywood and Los Angeles artists and writers set up a small holiday colony in Borrego Springs, more remote and modest than the Hollywood colony in the north in Palm Springs.
Oliver lived in Borrego from 1929. He gained media attention by carving and expanding the dozens of wooden peglegs he scattered around the hillsides and moats, so that rockhounds and tourists might think of themselves in the incredible Peg Pegilang Mine track. The Riverside Enterprise newspaper wrote, "Self-defense, Oliver said that the government keeps the trout stream for fishermen, why can not I keep a desert with peglegs?"
Inspired by Borrego characters and liars, Oliver wrote a series of local color stories for Life Magazine (journals journal of 1883-1936, not journalistic photojournal Henry Luce). He then collects and extends these stories to his own publications ( The Crag Desert ", 99 Days In The Desert , The Old Mirage Salesman . The Desert Mouse Scipebook .) The desert story also appears in magazines like Gold Miner , Todo , Bears . i>, New Mexico , Desert Magazine , Stage , and more. He then wrote columns for the Desert Magazine , Arizona Highway , and a daily for a group of California and Arizona newspapers. "But my writing is not selling until I become my own publisher," he said.
Oliver moved to Thousand Palms, California (just north of Palm Springs) three weeks after Pearl Harbor Day, 1941. He passed a period of rubber growth at Bell Ranch and worked with the US Army at Palm Springs Airport. And immediately after the war, he started producing the "Desert Rat Scissors" Book.
The desert of the 2nd year rat
When you've been here in the Desert a few years you find yourself talking to yourself... After a few more years you find yourself talking to a lizard... Then in a few more years you find a lizard talking to you... When you find yourself stealing your amazing stories, you will be ready to start a Desert newspaper.
Source of the article : Wikipedia