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Variety (1996) - Obituaries: Saul Bass

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SAUL BASS

Saul Bass, internationally renowned animator, graphic designer and Oscar-winning filmmaker, died April 25 at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. He was 75.

Bass pioneered a revolution in feature film credits sequences, incorporating innovative graphic design and animation. His work set the tone of each film, transforming bland title cards and scrolls into vibrant, expressive prologues and epilogues.

Bass designed title sequences and poster art for more than 40 feature films, including the opening credits for "The Man With the Golden Arm," "The Seven Year Itch," "Anatomy of a Murder," "West Side Story," "The War of the Roses," "Mr. Saturday Night" and the 1991 "Cape Fear."

Born and raised in New York, Bass studied at the Art Students League and Brooklyn College. After 10 years of freelance design work in Gotham, he moved to L.A., where he founded Saul Bass & Associates (later Bass/Yager & Associates).

He began his film career as a title designer and visual consultant with Otto Preminger. Bass worked on the helmer's "Carmen Jones," "The Man With the Golden Arm," "Bonjour Tristesse," "Saint Joan," "Exodus," "Advise and Consent," "The Cardinal," "Bunny Lake Is Missing," "In Harm's Way" and "The Human Factor."

Bass worked on the titles and some sequences of the Alfred Hitchcock pics "Vertigo," "North by Northwest" and "Psycho," as well as John Frankenheimer's "Grand Prix" and Stanley Kubrick's "Spartacus."

He designed the one-sheets for "Golden Arm," "St. Joan," "Around the World in 80 Days" and "West Side Story."

In 1961, Bass married Elaine Bakatura, and together they created numerous title sequences through the 1980s and '90s, including those for "Broadcast News," "Big," "Higher Learning" and a quartet of Martin Scorsese films: "GoodFellas," "Cape Fear," "The Age of Innocence" and last year's "Casino," his last bigscreen credit.

His shorts, 1963's "The Searching Eye" and '64's "From Here to There," won prizes at, respectively, the Venice and Chicago film festivals. In 1968, "Why Man Creates" won the Oscar for docu, short subject. He received two additional Oscar noms, for the live-action shorts "Notes on the Popular Arts" (1977) and "The Solar Film" (1979).

He made his sole foray into feature helming with the 1974 sci-fi pic "Phase IV."

Bass served on the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences board of governors; his current term was to expire in June. He was also in his second term as the chair of the board's Center Oversight Committee.

Bass was responsible for five recent Oscar commemorative posters, including the most recent one-sheet.

Bass' work is represented in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Library of Congress, the Smithsonian Institution, the Prague Museum, the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam and the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, and has been featured in numerous one-man shows and group exhibitions around the world.

Bass is survived by his wife, two sons, two daughters and a granddaughter.

Services will be private. In lieu of flowers, family suggests contributions to the charity of your choice.

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