| Brian Savegar | |
|---|---|
| Born | 24 August 1932 Abergavenny, Wales |
| Died | 31 March 2007 (aged 74) |
| Occupation | Production designer |
| Years active | 1980 - 2001 |
Brian Savegar (24 August 1932 – 31 March 2007) was a production designer in the film and TV industry. He won an Academy Award in 1986 in the category Best Art Direction for the film A Room with a View.[1]
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Born and raised in Abergavenny, with a younger sister called Jill, he was encouraged to be musical by his parents who both loved jazz and consequently he learned to play the trumpet at an early age. While studying Fine Art at the Cardiff College of Art, he played trumpet semi-professionally with local jazz bands in and around Cardiff and Bristol and was also very briefly a member of the Acker Bilk Bristol Paramount Jazz Band.
His skills as a graphic artist were developed when he worked as an Art Editor and Designer before joining the film industry in 1962 when it become apparent that he needed to decide whether to earn a living as an artist or by playing jazz. He moved to Cookham near Maidenhead in the early '60s while working in various UK film production and design roles at Shepperton and Pinewood Studios. During this time he was a member of Thames Valley Rugby Club playing for the first XV. He was keen on vintage cars and owned an{Invicta} among other vehicles.
Subsequently he decamped to Ferney Voltaire on the French-Swiss border with his wife Sarah, who had been offered a job with a UN agency in Geneva. After some corporate film projects failed to materialize he mostly spent his time renovating an old property in the Gex commune and propping up various bars in Ferney.
After his marriage failed in the late '70s, he reactivated his network of film contacts and this led to a job offer on a documentary film that was being made in Canada. From there he moved back into the mainstream film and TV industry where he enjoyed considerable success over the next 20 years. He split his time principally between the UK and New Orleans where he worked on both TV and film projects. The pinnacle of his success was achieved in 1986 when he jointly won the Oscar with Elio Altramura for Set Design & Art Direction on the Merchant Ivory production of A Room with a View. The Oscar was presented to him by Isabella Rossellini and Christopher Reeve at the Academy Awards Ceremony on March 30, 1987 and he publicly thanked James Ivory from the podium. The competing nominations in that year were Aliens, The Mission, The Colour of Money and Hannah and her Sisters. He was also a member of the Art Directors Branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Following his new-found success in films and TV, he bought himself a home in the southern French village of Roumoules in Provence. He was diagnosed with diabetes in 1989 and this led him to gradually reduce his workload during the late 1990s and to spend more time at his home in France. He took up his trumpet playing again and would perform with local and visiting jazz musicians. Savegar succumbed to the condition on March 31, 2007 at the age of 74.