Oscar-winning art director Gil Parrondo passes away

LOS ANGELES: Gil Parrondo, an Academy Awardwinning art director for Patton and Nicholas and Alexandra, has died on December 24 in Madrid. He was 95.

Parrondo’s nephew Oscar confirmed the news of his death, reported Variety. “He had no other illness than his age,” Oscar Parrondo said.

He was nominated for another Oscar for Travels with My Aunt in 1972 and worked on scores of other films, including Doctor Zhivago.

Born in Luarca in Spain’s northern Asturias on June 17, 1921, Parrondo’s big break came relatively early. He scored his first job on 1939’s Los cuatro Robinsones, assisting set decorator Sigfrido Burmann with whom he worked for 10 years, including on films by Spanish studio Cifesa.

Parrondo worked for the first time as art director in 1951 on Antonio del Amo’s Dia tras D a, then headed up set decoration on Orson Welles’ 1955 Confidential Report, where he marvelled at how Welles achieved large visual effects with very little money. He served a further apprenticeship working in the art direction departments on a string of big-budget US shoots in Spain, from Stanley Kramer’s 1957 The Pride and the Passion. In a near-80year career, at the time of his death, he was working on 33 Days, Carlos Saura’s upcoming movie on Picasso’s painting go Guernica, starring Antonio Banderas.