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Hal Pereira (April 29, 1905 – December 17, 1983) was an American
art director Art director is the title for a variety of similar job functions in theater, advertising, marketing, publishing, fashion, film and television, the Internet, and video games. It is the charge of a sole art director to supervise and unify the vis ...
,
production designer In film and television, the production designer is the individual responsible for the overall aesthetic of the story. The production design gives the viewers a sense of the time period, the plot location, and character actions and feelings. Wo ...
, and occasional architect. Pereira was born in
Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...
,
Illinois Illinois ( ) is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolitan areas include, Peoria and Rock ...
, the son of Sarah (Friedberg) and Saul Pereira. In the 1940s through the 1960s he worked on more than 200 films as an art director and production designer. He was nominated for 23
Oscars The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international film industry. The awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the entertainment ind ...
, having won only one for his work on ''
The Rose Tattoo ''The Rose Tattoo'' is a three-act play written by Tennessee Williams in 1949 and 1950; after its Chicago premiere on December 29, 1950, he made further revisions to the play for its Broadway premiere on February 2, 1951, and its publication by ...
''. He served, along with Earl Hedrick, as artistic director of the popular TV series
Bonanza ''Bonanza'' is an American Western television series that ran on NBC from September 13, 1959, to January 16, 1973. Lasting 14 seasons and 432 episodes, ''Bonanza'' is NBC's longest-running western, the second-longest-running western series on ...
. Pereira started out in theater design in Chicago before moving to Los Angeles and working for Paramount Studios as a unit art director. In 1944 he was art designer for the
film noir Film noir (; ) is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and motivations. The 1940s and 1950s are generally regarded as the "classic period" of American '' ...
''
Double Indemnity ''Double Indemnity'' is a 1944 American crime film noir directed by Billy Wilder, co-written by Wilder and Raymond Chandler, and produced by Buddy DeSylva and Joseph Sistrom. The screenplay was based on James M. Cain's 1943 novel of the same ...
''. By 1950, he was supervising art director for the studio, a position at which he remained until its reorganization by the
Gulf+Western Gulf and Western Industries, Inc. (stylized as Gulf+Western) was an American conglomerate. Originally, the company focused on manufacturing and resource extraction. Beginning in 1966, and continuing throughout the 1960s and 1970s, the company ...
oil firm in the late 1960s. There, he worked on such films as the classic Western ''
Shane Shane may refer to: People * Shane (actress) (born 1969), American pornographic actress * Shane (New Zealand singer) (born 1946) * iamnotshane (born 1995), formerly known as Shane, American singer * Shane (name), a masculine given name and a su ...
'' and '' The Greatest Show on Earth'', which won the Oscar for Best Picture. In 1955 Pereira won the Oscar for best art direction for a black and white film for ''
The Rose Tattoo ''The Rose Tattoo'' is a three-act play written by Tennessee Williams in 1949 and 1950; after its Chicago premiere on December 29, 1950, he made further revisions to the play for its Broadway premiere on February 2, 1951, and its publication by ...
''. In addition, he was the art director on almost all of the important
Alfred Hitchcock Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock (13 August 1899 – 29 April 1980) was an English filmmaker. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in the history of cinema. In a career spanning six decades, he directed over 50 featur ...
films of the 1950s. Pereira was educated at the
University of Illinois The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the Uni ...
and is brother of architect (and occasional film art director)
William L. Pereira William Leonard Pereira (April 25, 1909 – November 13, 1985) was an American architect from Chicago, Illinois, who was noted for his futuristic designs of landmark buildings such as the Transamerica Pyramid in San Francisco. Remarkably pro ...
. He died in
Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world ...
,
California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...
.


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* American art directors American production designers Best Art Direction Academy Award winners 1905 births 1983 deaths American people of Portuguese-Jewish descent {{US-artdirector-stub