Ken Adam
Sir Ken Adam production designer | |
---|---|
Spouse |
Maria-Letizia Moauro
(m. 1952) |
Awards | BAFTA for Dr. Strangelove (1964) BAFTA for The IPCRESS File (1965) Academy Award for Barry Lyndon (1975) Academy Award for The Madness of King George (1994) |
Military career | |
Allegiance | United Kingdom |
Service/ | Royal Air Force |
Years of service | 1941–1947 |
Rank | Flight lieutenant |
Service number | 187137 |
Unit | No. 609 Squadron |
Battles/wars | World War II |
Sir Kenneth Adam
Adam won two Academy Awards for Best Art Direction. Born in Berlin, he relocated to England with his Jewish family at the age of 13 soon after the Nazis came to power. Together with his younger brother, Denis Adam, he was one of only three German-born pilots to serve in the Royal Air Force during the Second World War.
Early life
Adam was born in 1921 in
Fritz co-owned a well-known high-fashion clothing and sporting goods store called S. Adam (Berlin, Leipziger Straße/Friedrichstraße) together with his three brothers, George,[dubious ] Siegfried and Otto Adam.[3][4] The company had been established in 1863 by Saul Adam. Klaus (Ken) had two older siblings, Peter, Loni and a younger brother Dieter (1 February 1924 – 17 October 2018).[5][6]
The family lived an almost idyllic, privileged existence until the Nazi Party came to power.[3]
His older brother Peter was good friends with Gottfried Reinhardt the son of theatre and film director Max Reinhardt and they would often take the young Klaus out with them. As a result, he got to know Max Reinhardt and many other people in the German theatre. Gottfried Reinhardt later became a film director and producer.
England
The combination of his brother Dieter at the age of nine having a fight with a playground bully wearing a Hitler Youth uniform and the increasing discrimination against Jews convinced their parents to send Klaus and Dieter to Craigend Park boarding school in Edinburgh.[7] Upon arrival Klaus anglicised his name to Kenneth and eventually Ken while his brother Dieter changed his to Denis. Their oldest brother Peter was at the time studying law at the University of Clermont-Ferrand in France and decided to move to England and complete his studies there.
The rest of the Adam family stayed in Germany as Adam's father felt that the Nazis were only a temporary aberration and they would wait it out. Things however continued to deteriorate with Jewish stores being boycotted and targeted for attacks in April 1933.
During the summer of 1933, Max Reich, a senior employee of the family business, and then Fritz Adam were arrested. Reich was a member of the SS and leader of the business's Nazi cell. Reich was eventually released and Fritz Adam was released and put under house arrest for three days.[4] Inquiries determined that a former employee who had been dismissed for dishonesty had accused the two men of unfair dismissal and conspiring to maintain undeclared funds in Switzerland. It took two weeks to disprove both allegations and no charges were laid against either man.[8] Reluctantly coming to the conclusion that Jews had no future in Germany, Fritz, Lilli and Loni, as well as some of Ken's aunts and uncles, fled to England in the summer of 1934.[9] The family eventually settled in the Hampstead area of London the following year.
The family were declared refugees on their arrival to England and identified as "friendly aliens" with the exception of Denis who was too young to be classified. The family arrived in England with nothing other than some gold coins Lilli had smuggled out.[10] His mother who had never previously worked in her life used the little money they had to establish and run a boarding house. His father struggled with his change in status and starting over in a new country. His father started an import-export business selling gloves but his health deteriorated and he died in 1936 when he was 56 years old.[4]
Adam left the boarding school in Edinburgh to rejoin his parents in London and continued his education at
World War II
When World War II began, Adam was working on designs for air-raid shelters and illustrated books on air-raid protection and gas masks. As German citizens, the Adam family could have been interned as enemy aliens, but in October 1940 Adam was able to join the Pioneer Corps, a support unit of the British Army open to citizens of Axis countries resident in the UK and other Commonwealth countries, provided they were not considered a risk to security. Adam was seconded to design bomb shelters.
After eight months service in the Pioneer Corps, Adam's application to join the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve as a pilot was accepted. After initial flight training on de Havilland Tiger Moth biplanes in Scotland, he was sent to Canada and the United States for additional training. Among his instructors was British actor Michael Rennie.
Together with his brother Denis, Adam was one of three German-born pilots to serve in the Royal Air Force during the Second World War,[14] the third being Peter Stevens.[16] As such, if they had been captured by the Germans, they were liable to execution as traitors rather than being treated as prisoners of war.[17]
Following the end of the war Adam was the Allied officer in charge of German labour rebuilding Wunstorf Air Base.[1] Adam naturalised as a British subject on 27 December 1946 and left the RAF upon his demobilisation in 1947.[18][19]
Film career
Adam entered the film industry as a draughtsman on This Was a Woman (1948) at Riverside Studios in Hammersmith.[1] His first major screen credit was as production designer on the British thriller Soho Incident (1956). Working in 1952 for art director Paul Sheriff on the Burt Lancaster film The Crimson Pirate, Adam designed an 18th-century hot-air balloon, a flame-throwing tank, and a rowing boat that transformed into a submarine.[1]
In the mid-1950s, he worked (uncredited) on the epics Around the World in 80 Days (also 1956) and Ben-Hur (1959), directed by William Wyler.
In 1956 he assisted art director Edward Carrere with the sets for Helen of Troy.[1]
His first major credit was for the horror film Night of the Demon (1957), directed by Jacques Tourneur, and he was also the production designer on several films directed by Robert Aldrich. The first public knowledge of his expertise came when he won an award for the sets of The Trials of Oscar Wilde at the Moscow Film Festival in 1960.[1]
He was hired for the first James Bond film,
This enabled Adam to make his name with his innovative, semi-futuristic sets for further
Adam's other film credits include The Trials of Oscar Wilde (1960), the Michael Caine espionage thriller The Ipcress File (1965) and its sequel Funeral in Berlin (1966), the Peter O'Toole version of Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1969), Sleuth (1972), Salon Kitty (1976), Agnes of God (1985), Addams Family Values (1993), and The Madness of King George (1994).[20][24] He was also a visual consultant on the film version of Pennies from Heaven (1981), adapted from Dennis Potter's television serial.[24]
Adam returned to work with Kubrick on
Adam was a jury member at the 1980 Cannes Film Festival and the 49th Berlin International Film Festival.[27] In 1999, during the Victoria and Albert Museum exhibition "Ken Adam – Designing the Cold War", Adam spoke on his role in the design of film sets associated with the 1960s through the 1980s.[5]
Death
Adam died on 10 March 2016 at his home in London, following a short illness. He was 95 years old.[28]
Personal life
He met his wife Maria-Letizia Moauro while filming The Crimson Pirate on location on the Italian island of Ischia and they married on 16 August 1952.[1][5]
Legacy
In September 2012, Adam handed over his entire body of work to the Deutsche Kinemathek. The Ken Adam collection comprises approximately 4,000 sketches for films from all periods, photo albums to individual films, storyboards of his employees, memorabilia, military medals, and identity documents, as well as all cinematic awards, including Adam's two Academy Awards.[29][30]
The Ken Adam Building, a large lot at
Honours
Adam was appointed an
Filmography
Awards
Notes
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Jonathan, Glancey (30 October 1999). "The grand illusionist". The Guardian. Retrieved 30 October 2018.
- ^ Adam, page 10.
- ^ Beuth University of Applied Sciences Berlin. Archived from the originalon 11 March 2016. Retrieved 11 March 2016.
- ^ a b c Karras, Steven (13 November 2013). "Sir Ken Adam on Designing James Bond Sets and Working With Kubrick". HuffPost. Retrieved 31 October 2018.
- ^ a b c d e Harrod, Horatia (28 September 2008). "Ken Adam: the man who drew the Cold War". The Daily Telegraph.
- ^ Jewish Telegraph: "THE GREATEST EVER JEWISH FILMS Oy Oy Seven!" retrieved 26 February 2017
- ^ Adam, pages 17, 18 and 23.
- ^ Adam, page 20.
- ^ Madigan, Nick (21 February 2002). "Ken Adam: designer behind 'Bond' movies". Variety. Retrieved 11 March 2016.
- ^ Adam, page 21.
- ^ Monahan, Mark (14 January 2006). "Film-makers on film: Ken Adam". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 11 March 2016.
- ^ Frayling (2005): p. 23-41
- ^ a b "Ken Adam". 609 (West Riding) Squadron Archive. 2002. Archived from the original on 5 June 2011. Retrieved 25 April 2009.
- ^ a b "Ken Adam: The Man with the Midas Touch". The Economist. 11 March 2016. Retrieved 29 October 2018.
- ^ Adam, page 34.
- ^ Florence, Elinor (23 April 2014). "The German Jew Who Bombed Berlin". Elinor Florence. Retrieved 29 October 2018.
- ^ Vishnevetsky, Ignatiy (10 March 2016). "R.I.P. Ken Adam, production designer for James Bond and Stanley Kubrick". The A.V. Club. Retrieved 11 March 2016.
- ^ "No. 37887". The London Gazette. 21 February 1947. p. 862.
- ^ "No. 38120". The London Gazette (Supplement). 7 November 1947. p. 5312.
- ^ a b c "Adam, Ken (1921–)". BFI. Retrieved 11 March 2016.
- ^ "Kubrick recalled by influential set designer Sir Ken Adam". BBC News. 16 August 2013. Retrieved 18 March 2016.
- ^ Frayling (2005): p. 131
- ^ Dee, Johnny (17 September 2005). "Licensed to drill". The Guardian. Retrieved 10 March 2016.
- ^ a b "Ken Adam – Filmography". Movies & TV Dept. The New York Times. 2016. Archived from the original on 11 March 2016. Retrieved 11 March 2016.
- ^ a b Frayling (2005): p. 165-171
- ISBN 978-0671568399.
- ^ "1999 Juries". Berlin International Film Festival. Retrieved 28 January 2012.
- ^ "Sir Ken Adam, James Bond production designer, dies aged 95". BBC News. 10 March 2016. Retrieved 10 March 2016.
- ^ Farber, Stephen (14 March 2015). "Production designer Ken Adam looks back at 'Goldfinger,' other films". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 10 March 2016.
- ^ Conrad, Andreas (4 September 2012). "James Bonds Chefdesigner". Der Tagesspiegel (in German). Retrieved 10 March 2016.
- ^ "No. 54255". The London Gazette (Supplement). 29 December 1995. p. 10.
- ^ "No. 56963". The London Gazette (Supplement). 14 June 2003. p. 2.
- .
References
- Adam, Denis (1996). Profile of a New Zealander: The Autobiography of Denis Adam. Wellington: Astra Publishing. ISBN 0-473-03742-4.
Further reading
- Adam, Ken; ISBN 978-1-870814-27-0.
- Adam, Ken; ISBN 978-0-500-51414-6.
- Christie, Ian; Adam, Ken (2012). "Architect of Dreams". Patek Philippe International Magazine. III (7): 56.
- ISBN 978-0-571-22057-1.
- Kissling-Koch, Petra (2012). Macht(t)räume: Der Production Designer Ken Adam und die James-Bond-Filme (in German). Berlin: ISBN 978-3-86505-396-1.
- Smoltczyk, Alexander (2002). James Bond, Berlin, Hollywood – Die Welten des Ken Adam (in German). Berlin: Nicolaische Verlagsbuchhandlung. ISBN 978-3-87584-069-8.
External links
- Ken Adam at IMDb
- Ken Adam at BFI Screenonline
- Ken Adam at Web of Stories
- Imperial War Museum Interview from 1997
- Imperial War Museum Interview from 1997
- Imperial War Museum Interview from 2009
- [1] Interview British Entertainment History Project