Edward Nassour (April 7, 1911 – December 15, 1962) was an American film producer, businessman, and special effects animator. He was the brother and business partner of William Nassour (1903–1987).

Biography

Edward Nassour was born in Colorado Springs, Colorado, one of the sons of Syrian immigrants Abraham and Rhoda Nassour, who had emigrated to New York's

Little Syria Little Syria ( ar, سوريا الصغيرة) was a diverse neighborhood that existed in the New York City borough of Manhattan from the late 1880s until the 1940s., pp.76-77; Two other sections of New York were singled out as particularly Syrian i ...

with their elder son William in 1902. Before becoming a producer, Nassour worked as a Los Angeles businessman working in the aircraft manufacturing industry and had an interest in

stop motion animation Stop motion is an animated filmmaking technique in which objects are physically manipulated in small increments between individually photographed frames so that they will appear to exhibit independent motion or change when the series of frames i ...

. In the early 1940s he partnered with

Walter Lantz Walter Lantz (April 27, 1899 – March 22, 1994) was an American cartoonist, animator, producer and director best known for founding Walter Lantz Productions and creating Woody Woodpecker. Biography Early years and start in animation Lantz ...

to make a stop motion

Technicolor Technicolor is a series of Color motion picture film, color motion picture processes, the first version dating back to 1916, and followed by improved versions over several decades. Definitive Technicolor movies using three black and white films ...

dinosaur film for

Columbia Pictures Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production studio that is a member of the Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group, a division of Sony Pictures Entertainment, which is one of the Big Five studios and a subsidiary of the mu ...

entitled ''Lost Atlantis''. Lantz and Nassour produced a test reel, but the project was too expensive and was never completed. The two men decided to form a company to make a series of stop motion films but the plan never was completed. In 1946, the Nassour brothers purchased a four-acre lot on

Sunset Boulevard Sunset Boulevard is a boulevard in the central and western part of Los Angeles, California, that stretches from the Pacific Coast Highway in Pacific Palisades east to Figueroa Street in Downtown Los Angeles. It is a major thoroughfare in t ...

and built a studio complex (Consolidated Studios) featuring four stages, a projection room, dressing rooms, and offices. A variety of independent films (such as ''

Africa Screams ''Africa Screams'' is a 1949 American Adventure film, adventure comedy film directed by Charles Barton (director), Charles Barton and starring Abbott and Costello that parodies the safari#Cinema genre, safari genre. The title is a play on the ti ...

'' and ''

Mrs. Mike ''Mrs. Mike, the Story of Katherine Mary Flannigan'' is a novel by Benedict and Nancy Freedman set in the Canadian wilderness during the early 1900s. Considered by some a young-adult classic, ''Mrs. Mike'' was initially serialized in the Atlantic ...

'' (both 1949)) and television shows were produced at the complex. After selling their studio complex to the

Times Mirror Company The Times Mirror Company was an American newspaper and print media publisher from 1884 until 2000. History It had its roots in the Mirror Printing and Binding House, a commercial printing company founded in 1873, and the ''Los Angeles Times'' ...

for their TV station

KTTV KTTV (channel 11) is a television station in Los Angeles, California, United States, serving as the West Coast flagship of the Fox network. It is owned and operated by the network's Fox Television Stations division alongside MyNetworkTV outle ...

in May 1950, Nassour supervised the dinosaur sequences in '' The Lost Continent''. They later built another studio, Nassour Studio Inc. Later the Nassours made the television series ''

Sheena, Queen of the Jungle Sheena, Queen of the Jungle, is a fictional American comic book jungle girl heroine, originally published primarily by Fiction House during the Golden Age of Comic Books. She was the first female comic book character with her own title, with her ...

'' in Mexico. Nassour developed a special effects process called "Regiscope" and successfully patented many animation techniques. He claimed to have spent 18 years developing the process from his ''Lost Atlantis'' project. Regiscope was used in the Mexican

international co-production A co-production is a joint venture between two or more different production companies for the purpose of film production, television production, video game development, and so on. In the case of an international co-production, production companies ...

The Beast of Hollow Mountain ''The Beast of Hollow Mountain'' is a 1956 Weird West horror film about an American rancher living in Mexico who discovers that his missing cattle are being preyed upon by a dinosaur. Plot In southern Mexico at the turn of the 20th century, ta ...

'' that Edward directed based on designs by

Willis O'Brien Willis Harold O'Brien (March 2, 1886 – November 8, 1962) was an American motion picture special effects and stop-motion animation pioneer, who according to ASIFA-Hollywood "was responsible for some of the best-known images in cinema history," ...

for his then-unfinished film ''

The Valley of Gwangi ''The Valley of Gwangi'' is a 1969 American fantasy Western film produced by Charles H. Schneer and Ray Harryhausen, directed by Jim O'Connolly, written by William Bast, and starring James Franciscus, Richard Carlson, and Gila Golan. Creature ...

''.

Personal life

In 1946, he married American film and radio actress

Sharon Douglas Sharon Douglas (born Rhoda-Nelle Rader; October 16, 1920 – June 18, 2016) was an American film and radio actress, most active in the 1940s and 1950s. Early life The daughter of Mr. and Mrs. L.M. Rader, Douglas was born in Stephens County, Okla ...

(born Rhoda-Nelle Rader; October 16, 1920,

Stephens County, Oklahoma Stephens County is a county located in the U.S. state of Oklahoma. As of the 2010 census, the population was 45,048. Its county seat is Duncan. The county was created at statehood, partly from the Chickasaw Nation in Indian Territory and partl ...

– June 18, 2016); the couple had four sons together.

Death

Nassour had been in poor health and was found dead in

Sherman Oaks, California Sherman Oaks is a neighborhood in the city of Los Angeles, California located in the San Fernando Valley, founded in 1927. The neighborhood includes a portion of the Santa Monica Mountains, which gives Sherman Oaks a lower population density than ...

with a self-inflicted knife wound to the heart.Slide, Anthony ''The Television Industry: a Historical Dictionary'' Greenwood Press, 1991, p. 185

References

External links

*
William Nassour
at

IMDb IMDb (an abbreviation of Internet Movie Database) is an online database of information related to films, television series, home videos, video games, and streaming content online – including cast, production crew and personal biographies, ...

*Nassour Studios https://web.archive.org/web/20110719002611/http://employees.oxy.edu/jerry/nassour.htm {{DEFAULTSORT:Nassour, Edward 1911 births 1962 suicides American film producers Special effects people American television producers American people of Lebanese descent 20th-century American businesspeople Suicides by sharp instrument in the United States 1962 deaths