Email From an Oscar Winner's Son...

Every now and then a delightful surprise arrives in the ladyevesidwich@gmail.com emailbox.

A few months ago I was contacted by British scholar Dr. Susan Smith, Senior Lecturer in Film Studies at the University of Sunderland in England and author of Hitchcock: Suspense, Humour and Tone, published by the British Film Institute. Dr. Smith was interested in getting in touch with Edna May Wonacott who portrayed young Ann Newton in Hitchcock’s 1942 masterwork Shadow of a Doubt for a paper she was working on. I’d originally gotten to know Edna in 2010 and an interview I conducted with her was published online, in the local newspaper of the Arizona city where Edna now lives -and in Films of the Golden Age. Dr. Smith had came upon my interview (and those that followed) with Edna online and asked if I’d put her in touch with the now 80-year-old former child actress. I did, and Dr. Smith later interviewed Edna for her paper.

The King and I (1956)

More recently – i.e., last week -  I received an email from Brooke Wheeler, son of legendary art director/production designer/set decorator Lyle Wheeler, winner of five Academy Awards (for Gone with the Wind, Anna and the King of Siam, The Robe, The King and I, The Diary of Anne Frank). Last year, in July, I’d published a piece by a young woman, Constance/aka/”Captain Gregg,” who was then primarily blogging at Turner Classic Movies’ Classic Film Union. The piece was entitled “Lyle Wheeler – Setting the Scene.”

For those unfamiliar with Lyle Wheeler, he not only won five Oscars but was nominated for an additional 24 - for his work on films including Rebecca, Laura, Leave Her to Heaven, All About Eve, Viva Zapata!, My Cousin Rachel, Love is a Many-Splendored Thing, Daddy Long Legs and Journey to the Center of the Earth. He also contributed as art director and/or production designer and/or set decorator on well over 300 additional films that weren’t (though many should have been) Oscar nominated – films like A Star is Born (1937), Nightmare Alley, The Snake Pit, A Letter to Three Wives, Niagara, Pickup on South Street, How to Marry a Millionaire, The Seven Year Itch, Carousel, The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, No Down Payment, The Fly, South Pacific, The Long, Hot Summer, The Best of Everything and In Harm’s Way. Wheeler worked in movies during every decade from the 1930s through the 1970s, that’s five decades, and was inducted into the Art Directors Guild Hall of Fame (est. 2005) in 2008 (other illustrious inductees include Anton Grot, William Cameron Menzies, Van Nest Polglase, Hans Dreier, Cedric Gibbons, Henry Bumstead, Robert F. Boyle and Alfred Junge). Wheeler also worked in TV, most notably on the the noirish and iconic Perry Mason series.

Here is what Lyle’s son Brooke Wheeler wrote:

After doing some recent research on my father Lyle, I came across your excellent and well informed article…

I'm sure Lyle would have been appreciative of all the kind comments, as I am. Just an FYI, Lyle's career continued into the mid 1970's, renewing his relationship with Otto Preminger on IN HARMS WAY (1965) post 20th Century Fox, then with features through Columbia Pictures like MAROONED (1969) and his final feature, POSSE (1975) (with Kirk Douglas starring and directing). It is wonderful to hear younger audiences enjoying all the Classic "Golden Age of Hollywood" films…. Many Thanks,

W. Brooke Wheeler

To read the superb piece on his father that prompted Brooke Wheeler's email, click here.

Leave Her to Heaven (1945)

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Posted by: Tukiyooo Email From an Oscar Winner's Son... Updated at : 6:00 AM

Monday, September 17, 2012