Harry Lange (film designer)

Hans Kurt ("Harry") Lange (December 7, 1930 – May 22, 2008) was an Academy Award-nominated, BAFTA-winning German film production designer and art director.

Lange was born in 1930 in Eisenach, Thuringia. After World War II, Thuringia became part of Soviet-controlled East Germany; Lange escaped across the border to West Germany, where he studied art before moving to the United States in 1951. Upon arriving in the United States, Lange worked in advertising. During the Korean War, Lange worked for the U.S. military, illustrating flying manuals. [http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article4250001.ece Harry Lange: film production designer] , "The Times", July 2, 2008.]

Subsequently he began working at the Army Ballistic Missile Agency and then headed the future projects section at NASA, working on spacecraft designs alongside Wernher von Braun. Whilst at NASA, Lange met the author Arthur C. Clarke, who introduced him to the film director Stanley Kubrick. [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/1247163.stm Turning sci-fi into fact] , "BBC News", January 3, 2002.] Kubrick offered Lange a job at his production company, using his astronautical design experience to produce authentic prop and set designs for a project Kubrick and Clarke were working on entitled "Journey to the Stars". The project was renamed as "" (released in 1968), and the film's design team, including Lange, were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Art Direction. Although "2001" lost to "Oliver!", Lange and his team did win the BAFTA Award for Best Production Design in that year.

Although best known for "2001", Lange worked on a number of well-known films during his career. He was art director for the James Bond film "Moonraker", and a astronautical consultant on "Superman II". He worked on two of the "Star Wars" films, as an art director and set decorator for ' (for which he was again nominated for the Art Direction Oscar) and ' respectively. He worked as a production designer on two films for the Jim Henson Company: "The Great Muppet Caper" (1981) and "The Dark Crystal" (1982). He was also production designer for the last Monty Python film "Monty Python's The Meaning of Life".

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*imdb name|name=Harry Lange|id=0486127
* [http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2008/jul/08/obituaries.culture Obituary at the Guardian]