Cedric Gibbons

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Cedric Gibbons (b. Austin Cedric Gibbons, Dublin, Ireland, March 23, 1890—d. Los Angeles, California, July 26, 1960), American art director

Gibbons is arguably the most important and influential art director in the history of American film.

He studied at the Art Students League in New York and worked for his architect father. While at Edison Studios from 1915, he first designed a set for a film (released in 1919), assisting Hugo Ballin. But, after this first foray, the studio closed, and he signed with Samuel Goldwyn in 1918. This evolved to working for Louis B. Mayer at MGM from 1924 to 1956—a 32-year career.

In 1930, he married actress Dolores del Rio. They divorced in 1941, the year he married actress Hazel Brooks (b. Cape Town, South Africa, 1925–d. Los Angeles, 2002) with whom he remained for the rest of his life. At the time, Brooks was 19. (Glamorous 1940s–50s actress Brooks played cynical nightclub singer Alice in MGM's Body and Soul [1947] with John Garfield. Subsequent to Gibbons's death, Brooks married Dr. Rex Ross [d. 1999], a surgeon. In her later years, Brooks was active as a photographer and patron of children's charities.)

Cedric Gibbons was a poseur in that he fostered MGM's incorrect publicity claim that he was born in Dublin, Ireland, since it seemed more respectable than Brooklyn, and provided his birth year as 1893. Also, in responding to letters from those seeking employment as designers at MGM, he instructed his secretary Herta Verkuitz to respond by claiming that a degree in "architectural engineering" was required, thus, suggesting that he himself had such a degree and evidently aspiring to his father's profession. The self-aggrandising letters further claimed that Gibbons was "the first to bring modern architecture to the screen" (a memo dated 23 March 23, 1935, Special Collections, American Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, MGM Art Department/Publicity, folder 44).

Gibbons was one of the original 36 founding members of The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and oversaw the design of the Academy Awards® Oscar® statue in 1929, a trophy for which he himself would be nominated 39 times, winning 11—second only to Walt Disney, who won 26.

He retired in 1956 with about 1,500 films credited to him. This number is misleading, however, because his contract with MGM dictated that he receive credit as the art director for every MGM film released in the United States, even though other designers—even those who may have been more talented—did the bulk or all of the work. Even so, his actual hands-on art direction may have been on about 150 films.

Gibbons's set designs, particularly those in such films as Born to Dance (1936) and Rosalie (1937), heavily inspired motion picture theater architecture in the late 1930s through 1950s. The style is found very clearly in the theaters that were managed by the Skouras brothers, whose designer Carl G. Moeller used the sweeping scroll-like details in his creations. Among the more classic examples are the Loma Theater in San Diego, The Crest in Long Beach and Fresno, and the Culver Theater in Culver City, all of which are in California and some extant. The style is sometimes referred to as Art Deco and Art Moderne. The 2006 Academy Award Show stage set design at the Kodak Theater in Hollywood was inspired by this so-called golden-era of theater architecture.

Gibbons's grave is in the Calvary Cemetery, East Los Angeles.