Harry Oliver
| | Born: | April, 4, 1888
Hastings, Minnesota | | Died: | July, 4, 1973
Woodland Hills, California | | Occupation: | Art director, artist, humorist | | Nationality: | United States | | Writing period: | 1914-1965 | | Genres: | early naturalistic
cinema; Western humor | | Influenced: | German Expressionists
Wild West theme parks | | Website: | http://klaxo.net/hofc/ | Harry Oliver (April 4, 1888 — July 4, 1973) was an American humorist, artist, and Academy Award -nominated art director of films from the 1920s and 1930s. Besides his outstanding work in Hollywood, he is now best remembered for his humorous writings about the American Southwest, and his publication (1946-1964) of the Desert Rat Scrap Book, an irregular broadsheet devoted to the Southwest. He was born in Hastings, Minnesota and died in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California. For the album by the Kaiser Chiefs see Employment (album) Employment is a contract between two parties, one being the employer and the other being the employee. ...
In English usage, nationality is the legal relationship between a person and a country. ...
A literary genre is one of the divisions of literature into genres according to particular criteria such as literary technique, tone, or content. ...
April 4 is the 94th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (95th in leap years). ...
Year 1888 (MDCCCLXXXVIII) was a leap year starting on Sunday (click on link for calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a leap year starting on Tuesday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar). ...
July 4 is the 185th day of the year (186th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ...
Year 1973 (MCMLXXIII) was a common year starting on Monday (link will display full calendar) of the 1973 Gregorian calendar. ...
A humorist is an author who specializes in short, humorous articles or essays. ...
The definition of an artist is wide-ranging and covers a broad spectrum of activities to do with creating art, practising the arts and/or demonstrating an art. ...
Academy Award The Academy Awards, popularly known as the Oscars, are the most prominent and most watched film awards ceremony in the world. ...
The term art director, is an overall title for a variety of similar job functions in advertising, publishing, film and television, the Internet, and video games. ...
The 1920s is a decade that is sometimes referred to as the Jazz Age or the Roaring Twenties, usually applied to America. ...
Face The 1930s (years from 1930–1939) were described as an abrupt shift to more radical and conservative lifestyles, as countries were struggling to find a solution to the Great Depression, also known in Europe as the World Depression. ...
Regional definitions vary from source to source. ...
Newspaper sizes in August 2005. ...
City Hall Mississippi River in Hastings Hastings is a city in Minnesota at the confluence of the Mississippi and St. ...
Woodland Hills is the name of various communities, including: Woodland Hills, Fulton County, Arkansas Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California is a community within the city of Los Angeles. ...
He is known for his Hollywood work as art director on the films Seventh Heaven (1927) and Street Angel (1928), for which he was nominated for the earliest Academy Awards, as well as set design or art direction on the films Ben Hur (1925), Sparrows (1926), Scarface (1932), Viva Villa! (1934), Mark of the Vampire (1935), and The Good Earth (1937). ...
For other uses, see Seventh Heaven (disambiguation) Seventh Heaven is a 1927 silent film that was one of the first films to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture (then called Best Picture, Production). The film was written by H.H. Caldwell (titles), Benjamin Glazer, Katherine Hilliker (titles...
Street Angel is a 1928 film about a woman who finds herself destitute and on the streets. ...
Academy Award The Academy Awards, popularly known as the Oscars, are the most prominent and most watched film awards ceremony in the world. ...
Ben-Hur is the second silent film, and first feature-length version, based on the novel Ben-Hur by Lew Wallace. ...
Scarface (also known as Scarface, the Shame of the Nation and The Shame of a Nation) is a 1932 gangster film of the Pre-Code era which tells the story of gang warfare and police intervention when rival gangs fight over control of a city. ...
Viva Villa! is a 1934 movie that was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture. ...
Mark of the Vampire (also known as Vampires of Prague) is a 1935 horror film, starring Lionel Barrymore, Elizabeth Allan, Bela Lugosi, Lionel Atwill, and Jean Hersholt and directed by Tod Browning. ...
The Good Earth (1937) is a movie based on the 1931 book of the same name by Nobel Prize-winning author Pearl S. Buck about Chinese peasants who try to survive a locust invasion. ...
Biography
Early 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 a Tom Sawyer environment, he associated with trappers, timbermen and steamboat men, and became an expert canoesman, guide, and muskrat hunter while a very young man. His father, Frederick Oliver, ran a general store in pioneer conditions. Tom Sawyer (born 1833?) is the title character of the Mark Twain novel The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876). ...
Look up Pioneer in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...
Harry Oliver's formal education was scanty. He said, "I attended public school in Eau Claire, Wisconsin until the fourth grade, that's when dad put me to work in a small town print shop in hopes that I would learn to spell." Eau Claire is a city located in west-central Wisconsin. ...
After working as a bill-poster for the Ringling Brothers circus, Harry moved with his family to Puget Sound, Washington in 1909. He worked as a scenic painter for the first Seattle World's Fair (Panama-Alaska-Yukon Exposition) where he met famous hat-maker John B. Stetson, who gave Harry his trademark black Stetson hat. Ringling Brothers were the founders of what eventually became the Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus. ...
Puget Sound For the liberal arts university located in this region, see University of Puget Sound. ...
This article deals with the U.S. state. ...
City nickname Emerald City City bird Great Blue Heron City flower Dahlia City mottos The City of Flowers The City of Goodwill City song Seattle, the Peerless City Mayor Greg Nickels County King County Area - Total - Land - Water - % water 369. ...
Worlds Fair is any of various large expositions held since the mid-19th century. ...
John Batterson Stetson (1830 - 1906) was a U.S. hat manufacturer; the stetson hat was named for him. ...
The Stetson Cavalry Hat For the university, see Stetson University. ...
Harry's parents soon settled down on a chicken ranch in Santa Cruz, California where Harry worked as a burro-driver for the U.S. Forest Service. In 1910 Harry returned to Minnesota to wed Alice Elizabeth Fernlund, "a pretty little Minnesota bear trapper" who later bore him two daughters, Amy Fern and Mary Alice. Harry and Alice returned to the chicken ranch in Santa Cruz. Harry worked odd jobs, including scenic artist with small theatres. "One day a movie company came to town with an opening, and I got the job." Santa Cruz is the county seat and largest city of Santa Cruz County, California, United States. ...
Hollywood Years Harry Oliver... was noted for his atmospheric settings and controlled environments. In fact the German expressionists learned a bit from Harry Oliver (and not the other way around). One of Oliver's specialties was recreating really believeable exterior locations on the back lot... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ...
– Robert Birchard, 1999, [1] Harry Oliver worked on various Hollywood productions from around 1911 to 1941, rising from set painter to set dresser to art director. A complete record of all his films is probably not available, but here is a partial list: A set dresser arranges things on a film set for shooting. ...
The term art director, is an overall title for a variety of similar job functions in advertising, publishing, film and television, the Internet, and video games. ...
Leo Carillo told me that M.G.M.'s European offices rent their copies of Viva Villa to all the countries of the world. They rent the film when the people of a country get "REVOLUTION HUNGRY." The Grim Game is a 1919 silent film starring Harry Houdini. ...
Little Annie Rooney was a Comic strip about a young orphaned girl, with a dog as a companion. ...
Ben-Hur is the second silent film, and first feature-length version, based on the novel Ben-Hur by Lew Wallace. ...
The Black Pirate is a 1926 adventure silent film shot entirely in Technicolor which tells the story of a young nobleman who infiltrates a ship full of pirates to avenge his fathers death. ...
For other uses, see Seventh Heaven (disambiguation) Seventh Heaven is a 1927 silent film that was one of the first films to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture (then called Best Picture, Production). The film was written by H.H. Caldwell (titles), Benjamin Glazer, Katherine Hilliker (titles...
Street Angel is a 1928 film about a woman who finds herself destitute and on the streets. ...
Fried egg Sunny Side Up, a 1929 film directed by David Butler starring Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell, noted for its use of an almost wandering mobile camera in a way highly atypical of the early sound period. ...
Lucky Star is a 1929 romantic drama film starring Janet Gaynor and directed by Frank Borzage. ...
Liliom is a 1909 play by Ferenc Molnár, famous as the basis for the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical Carousel. ...
Movie Crazy is a 1932 comedy film starring Harold Lloyd, a famous comedian who is most well-known for his silent films. ...
Scarface (also known as Scarface, the Shame of the Nation and The Shame of a Nation) is a 1932 gangster film of the Pre-Code era which tells the story of gang warfare and police intervention when rival gangs fight over control of a city. ...
Dancing Lady is a 1933 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer musical comedy film starring Joan Crawford, Clark Gable and Franchot Tone, as well as Robert Benchley, Nelson Eddy, Fred Astaire, and Ted Healy and his Three Stooges. ...
The Cats-Paw is a 1934 film starring Harold Lloyd and directed by Sam Taylor. ...
Viva Villa! is a 1934 movie that was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture. ...
Mark of the Vampire (also known as Vampires of Prague) is a 1935 horror film, starring Lionel Barrymore, Elizabeth Allan, Bela Lugosi, Lionel Atwill, and Jean Hersholt and directed by Tod Browning. ...
The Good Earth (1937) is a movie based on the 1931 book of the same name by Nobel Prize-winning author Pearl S. Buck about Chinese peasants who try to survive a locust invasion. ...
Of Human Hearts is a 1938 film with Beulah Bondi. ...
Cover of Cupples & Leon strip collection (1933) Little Orphan Annie is a full page (later half page or tab) American comic strip, created by Harold Gray (1894-1968), that first appeared on August 5, 1924. ...
A colorized image of Jack Buetel as Billy the Kid. ...
Leo Carrillo (1880-1961), was an actor, preservationist and conservationist. ...
– Harry Oliver, 1962, [2]
His Architecture Designing and building structures occupied portions of both the professional and personal life of Harry Oliver. For illustrations of some of these, see the Harry Oliver architecture page.
Harry Oliver built a number of adobe houses for himself and his family, both because he liked the esthetic effect, and because the building materials were extremely inexpensive. The first of these was La Ballona Rancho (named after nearby Ballona Creek), built beginning in 1917 near the old Palms film studios. In 1980 it was still standing at the corner of National and Exposition Blvd. in Los Angeles. Renewal of the surface coating of an adobe wall in Chamisal, New Mexico Adobe is a natural building material composed of sand, sandy clay and straw or other organic materials, which is shaped into bricks using wooden frames and dried in the sun. ...
The introduction of this article does not provide enough context for readers unfamiliar with the subject. ...
Palms is a district on the Westside of Los Angeles, California. ...
Homesteading at Borrego Springs (see below), Harry Oliver built his Rancho Borego house from 1930 - "a real first class, old time Spanish residence" and "surely 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 right now, the current owner does not take to trespassers, and does not want anybody poking around the old place. Seriously." [3] Borrego Springs is an unincorporated community in San Diego County, California, United States. ...
Moving to San Juan Capistrano in the late 1930s, where he managed a general store-trading post after retiring from Hollywood, he may have built another adobe house for himself, but documentation on this is sparse. And when he finally moved to Thousand Palms, California he built his famous Old Fort Oliver, "as old as the hills, 'cause that's where I got the adobe." San Juan Capistrano is a city located in southern Orange County, California, USA. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 33,826. ...
A general store is usually a retailer located in a small town or in a rural area with a broad selection of merchandise crammed into a relatively small space. ...
A trading post is a place where trading of goods takes place. ...
Thousand Palms is a census-designated place located in Riverside County, California. ...
A 'dobe house is fireproof, if built right, and one story high; earthquake proof, dust proof, sound proof, heat and cold proof, rat and termite proof, oh, and yes, bullet proof and almost proof against bad design, due to the thickness of its walls and damned if they don't take on more character with age. – Harry Oliver, 1946, [4] Besides his work on film sets, Harry Oliver's known professional designs date from the 1920s onward. The elaborate gingerbread Willat-Spadena Witch House (1921), "perhaps the ultimate example of Storybook Style" [5], with no two windows or angles alike, was originally built on the set of the Irvin Willat Film Studio in Culver City, then moved to Beverly Hills in 1934 and converted to a private residence. A Storybook House refers to an architectural style popularized in the 1920s in England and America. ...
Culver City sign near the intersection of the 405 and the 90. ...
For other uses, see: Beverly Hills (disambiguation). ...
Another of Harry Oliver's designs was the original Van de Kamp Bakery windmill, the corporate symbol of that firm. It was built at the Willat Studio film lot around 1921, then moved about 200 feet south of Beverly Drive on Western Blvd. The design was reproduced in the widely-spread bakery cottages around Southern California. Very few of these now survive. A Dutch tower windmill surrounded by tulips A windmill is an engine powered by the wind to produce energy, often contained in a large building as in traditional post mills, smock mills and tower mills. ...
For the urban complex straddling the United States-Mexico border, see Bajalta California. ...
Members of the Lawry's Foods and Van de Kamp Bakery families decided to build a restaurant at the corner of Boyce and Las Feliz in Hollywood. They commissioned a design from Harry Oliver, who constructed the Storybook Style building aided by movie studio carpenters. This Tam O'Shanter Inn opened in June 1922 and was a great success. The owner said, "Every piece of wood which was used in this structure was thrown into fire first with the result that we never had to paint it and it got more beautiful as the years went by." (L.L.Frank to B.Stohler) It was since remodeled and renamed the Great Scot.
In 1935, Harry Oliver was engaged to design, direct and produce Gold Gulch, the largest concession at the San Diego World's Fair (California Pacific International Exposition). Gold Gulch was a 21-acre old west mining camp and ghost town replica which undoubtedly inspired the Knotts Berry Farm Ghost Town, which Oliver was consulted upon but was not formally involved with. Flag Seal Nickname: Americas Finest City Location Location of San Diego within San Diego County Coordinates , Government County San Diego Mayor City Attorney City Council District One District Two District Three District Four District Five District Six District Seven District Eight Jerry Sanders (R) Michael Aguirre Scott Peters Kevin...
Worlds Fair is any of various large expositions held since the mid-19th century. ...
[www. ...
This article or section does not cite any references or sources. ...
Knotts Berry Farm is a theme park in Buena Park, California, and a manufacturer of food specialty products (primarily jams and preserves) based in Placentia, California. ...
In 1946-1947, Harry Oliver designed and supervised the construction of the Arabian Nights Stage at the National Date Festival fairgrounds in Indio, California. [6] Gaudy productions have been staged in this faux-Baghdad fantasyland from 1948 to the present. Saddam Hussein is not known to have attended. The Indio Fashion Mall. ...
Look up faux in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...
Baghdad (Arabic: ) is the capital of Iraq and of Baghdad Governorate. ...
Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti (28 April 1937 – 30 December 2006) was the fifth President of Iraq and Chairman of the Iraqi Revolutionary Command Council from 1979 until his overthrow by US forces in 2003. ...
Basic Family Life Of his family, Harry Oliver said, "My sister Amy Silver died giving birth to twins. My other sister Francis was a bright little brown-eyed newspaper wonman in the good old days {circa World War I}. My {older} brother Fred was a Western Auto sales buyer for years." Western Auto Supply Company is a chain of automobile parts stores. ...
In 1910 Harry traveled from California to Minnesota to wed Alice Elizabeth Fernlund (1896?-1935) who bore him two daughters, Amy Fern and Mary Alice. When Harry homesteaded in the desert in 1929 (see below) he spent much time there, as well as at remote locations for his movie work. This removal from his Los Angeles home put great strains on the marriage, which seems to have ended around 1929.
Harry moved back to the Palms house after the death of Alice Oliver from tuberculosis (age 39) on 9 January, 1935, and raised his two daughters with a succession of housekeepers. He soon met Ruth Dayton whilst engaged in his San Diego World's Fair project (see below). "She amused Harry from the start -- riding backward on a burro down the narrow winding road into 'Gold Gulch'." Ruth and Harry were married in San Diego on 27 July 1935; she was 29, he was 47. "However Harry soon learned Ruth was a bit too fond of booze... resulting in a short stormy marriage." Palms is a district on the Westside of Los Angeles, California. ...
In 1936-1937 Harry decided he needed to spend more time with his daughters. He pulled them out of school and together they travelled all over California, visiting all the missions, the construction site of the Golden Gate Bridge, numerous Gold Rush locales, "and Harry kept his daughters busy writing history theses on everything they saw." 1936 (MCMXXXVI) was a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will take you to calendar). ...
1937 (MCMXXXVII) was a common year starting on Friday (link will take you to calendar). ...
Postcard of the reconstructed Mission Santa Bárbara The California missions are a series of settlements established by Spanish Catholic Franciscans, to Christianize the local Native Americans, but with the added benefit of giving Spain a toehold in the frontier land. ...
The Golden Gate Bridge is a suspension bridge spanning the Golden Gate, the opening into the San Francisco Bay from the Pacific Ocean. ...
The California Gold Rush (1848–1855) began on January 24, 1848, when gold was discovered at Sutters Mill. ...
By 1941 the daughters were grown and married with children of their own, and Harry left Tinseltown for good, relocating to Thousand Palms, California where he built Old Fort Oliver (see below). His daughters' families spent a great deal of time at the Fort; some descendents, like granddaughter Betty Jo, told of happily "growing up" there. Greetings from Hollywood Hollywood is a district of the city of Los Angeles, California, U.S.A., situated northwest of Downtown. ...
Thousand Palms is a census-designated place located in Riverside County, California. ...
Desert Rat Years I Harry Oliver seems to have started adopting his Desert Rat persona in 1916, when he was introduced to life in California's Borrego Valley (which he insisted on spelling Borego), and with the informal formation of the Pegleg Smith Liar's Club, comprised of Los Angeles desert enthusiasts and Anza-Borrego area homesteaders. In the following decades, Hollywood and Los Angeles artists and literati established a small vacation colony at Borrego Springs, more remote and modest than the Hollywood colony just north in Palm Springs. The 7th Armoured Division (The Desert Rats) of the British Army was the most famous unit of its type in British service during World War II. It was a regular division in the Middle East, designated the Mobile Division at first, renamed the Armoured Division (Egypt) in September 1939, and...
Flag Seal Nickname: City of Angels Location Location within Los Angeles County in the state of California Coordinates , Government State County California Los Angeles County Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa (D) Geographical characteristics Area City 1,290. ...
An intellectual is a person who uses his or her intellect to study, reflect, and speculate on a variety of different ideas. ...
Borrego Springs is an unincorporated community in San Diego County, California, United States. ...
Palm Springs is the name of two places in the United States of America: Palm Springs, California — the more well known of the two Palm Springs, Florida Category: ...
Harry Oliver homesteaded in Borrego from 1929. He gained media attention by carving and weathering dozens of wooden peglegs which he scattered around area hillsides and gullies, so that rockhounds and tourists might think themselves on the track of the fabulous Lost Pegleg Mine. The Riverside Enterprise newspaper wrote, "Defending himself, Oliver says the Government stocks trout streams for fisherman, why shouldn't I stock the desert with peglegs?" Pegleg of Gen. ...
Inspired by the characters and liars of Borrego, Harry Oliver wrote a series of local color stories for Life Magazine (the 1883-1936 humor journal, not the Henry Luce photojournalism magazine). He later collected and expanded on these stories for his own publications (Desert Rough Cuts, 99 Days In The Desert,, The Old Mirage Salesman, and Desert Rat Scrap Book.) His desert stories also appeared in magazines such as The Gold Miner, Todo, The Grizzly Bear, New Mexico, Desert Magazine, Stage, and others. He later wrote columns for Desert Magazine, Arizona Highways, and daily for a group of California and Arizona newspapers. "But my writing wasn't in demand until I became my own publisher," he said. The examples and perspective in this article or section may not represent a worldwide view. ...
A cover of Life Magazine from 1911 Life has been the name of two notable magazines published in the United States. ...
Henry Robinson Luce (April 3, 1898 - February 28, 1967) was an influential American publisher. ...
Assault landing One of the first waves at Omaha Beach as photographed by Robert F. Sargent. ...
Look up todo in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...
Cover of Arizona Highways, September, 1955. ...
Harry Oliver moved to Thousand Palms, California (just north of Palm Springs) three weeks after Pearl Harbor Day, 1941. He passed the duration of World War II growing rubber at Bell Ranch and working with the US Army at Palm Springs Airport. And immediately after the war, he started producing the Desert Rat Scrap Book. Thousand Palms is a census-designated place located in Riverside County, California. ...
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Combatants Allied powers: China France Great Britain Soviet Union United States and others Axis powers: Germany Italy Japan and others Commanders Chiang Kai-shek Charles de Gaulle Winston Churchill Joseph Stalin Franklin Roosevelt Adolf Hitler Benito Mussolini Hideki TÅjÅ Casualties Military dead: 17,000,000 Civilian dead: 33,000...
Desert Rat Years II 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 the lizards... Then in another couple of years you find the lizards talking to you... When you find yourself stealing their amazing tales you are about ready to start a Desert paper. – Harry Oliver, 1948, [7] Harry Oliver produced 44 'quarterly' issues of his Desert Rat Scrap Book or DRSB newspaper, often at irregular intervals, between 1946-1965, until his health and optimism failed. In 1967 He gave his operation to Bill Powers, who produced two more issues and reprinted a few old issues, then abandoned the DRSB forever. While it lasted, the DRSB had a devoted worldwide audience.
(more to be added soon)
Some Quotes From Harry Oliver - It is a narrow minded person who thinks there is only one way to spell a word.
- I never did learn how to spell,—but I did learn the typesetter's rule,—"Set up type as long as you can hold your breath without turning blue in the face, then put in a comma. When you gape, put in a semicolon, and when you want to sneeze, that's the time to make a paragraph."
- Nobody ever drowned himself in sweat.
- I don't blame our Indians for being discouraged. They are the only ones to be conquered by the United States and not come out ahead.
- On the old road from the desert to San Diego there is a very dangerous precipice. An old timer told me they had a warning sign up for two years, but no one fell over so they took it down.
- A miner here tied a stick of dynamite around his neck and lit the fuse. Relatives and friends say they can't imagine why he did this. Of course this is only a theory, but he may have been tired of living.
- Way to stop wars is to quit lending money to other nations. That's how I got Dry Camp Blackie to stop drinking.
- ...I am one-fourth Indian. Yes, I am now one-quarter Cherokee Indian, I used to be one-eighth Cherokee, one-eighth Scotch, one-eighth Irish, one-eighth Dutch, and one-half English -- Here is how I made the change -- I gave all my English blood to the blood bank. I told that blonde nurse to cut it off as soon as any Irish or Indian blood showed up, and she did, I am sure. Losing the English blood has helped my sense of humor...
References
Source
Bibliography - Oliver, Harry (1938) Desert Rough Cuts, Los Angeles: Ward Ritchie Press.
- Oliver, Harry, with Sandy Walker (1941) 99 Days In The Desert, Corona, California: Green Lantern Print Shop.
- Oliver, Harry (1952) The Old Mirage Salesman, Palm Springs: The Printery.
- Oliver, Harry (1946-1964) Desert Rat Scrap Book, (self-published periodical).
External links — The Internet Movie Database (IMDb) is an online database of information about movies, actors, television shows, production crew personnel, and video games. ...
All Movie Guide is a commercial database of information about movie stars, movies and television shows. ...
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