Carroll Clark

Date of birth : 02/05/1894

Date of death : 05/17/1968

City of birth : Mountain View, California, USA

During the 1930's, relative Hollywood newcomer RKO succeeded for a while in establishing itself among 'the majors' -- MGM, Paramount, Fox and Warner Brothers. This happened in spite of the fact, that RKO could never seriously compete with the big budgets of its illustrious competitors, nor even boasted a particularly outstanding camera department. Nonetheless, RKO amply made up for these deficiencies by having one of the most creative art departments, headed (until 1941) by Van Nest Polglase. The number one art director under his supervision was Carroll Clark, who deserves at least an equal share of the credit for the Art Deco/Hollywood Moderne 'RKO look'. Clark, a qualified architect with experience in commercial design, was the primary creative force behind the 'Big White Set' (BWS), with its elegant, spacious, all-white interiors, curvilinear designs and highly reflective surfaces. This utilitarian concept, at once aesthetically pleasing and immensely cost-effective, proved a memorable and popular backdrop for the expansive dance routines of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers in all of their films, from Flying Down to Rio (1933) to Carefree (1938). Clark's career encompassed the entire history of RKO, from 1930 to 1956. He was a perfectionist craftsman, comfortable at working in every genre and on every historical period: from costume drama (a good example are the excellent Scottish village sets for The Little Minister (1934)); films noir (notably Suspicion (1941) and Notorious (1946) for Alfred Hitchcock; and Fritz Lang's Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (1956)); and lavish Technicolor adventures (The Spanish Main (1945) and Sinbad, the Sailor (1947)). After RKO ceased operation, Clark joined Walt Disney as supervising art director, winning two Oscar nominations for The Absent Minded Professor (1961) and Mary Poppins (1964). The invention of a 'moving cloud and horizon machine' also won him (alongside F. Thomas Thompson) a Scientific and Engineering Award in 1943. Clark was inducted into the Art Directors Hall of Fame in 2006.