Richard "Dick" Irvine (April 5, 1910 – March 30, 1976) was an American art director. He is best known for his

Academy Award The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international film industry. The awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the entertainment ind ...

nomination in the category Best Art Direction for the 1941

black and white film Black-and-white (B&W or B/W) images combine black and white in a continuous spectrum, producing a range of shades of grey. Media The history of various visual media began with black and white, and as technology improved, altered to color. ...

'' Sundown''. Over his long career, he worked as an art director in 31 films between 1939 and 1953. In the early 1950s, Walt Disney asked Irvine to help construct Disneyland. He moved from 20th Century Fox to the Walt Disney Studio in 1952 and became a senior figure at

Walt Disney Imagineering Walt Disney Imagineering Research & Development, Inc., commonly referred to as Imagineering, is the research and development arm of The Walt Disney Company, responsible for the creation, design, and construction of Disney theme parks and attra ...

(WDI). Until his retirement in 1973, he headed design and planning for all Disneyland attractions including the Haunted Mansion and Pirates of the Caribbean. Irvine became executive vice president and chief operations officer at WDI in 1967.

Personal life

Irvine was born in

Salt Lake City Salt Lake City (often shortened to Salt Lake and abbreviated as SLC) is the capital and most populous city of Utah, United States. It is the seat of Salt Lake County, the most populous county in Utah. With a population of 200,133 in 2020, th ...

Utah Utah ( , ) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. Utah is a landlocked U.S. state bordered to its east by Colorado, to its northeast by Wyoming, to its north by Idaho, to its south by Arizona, and to it ...

, on April 5, 1910. Following his graduation in Stanford University and the

University of Southern California , mottoeng = "Let whoever earns the palm bear it" , religious_affiliation = Nonsectarian—historically Methodist , established = , accreditation = WSCUC , type = Private research university , academic_affiliations = , endowment = $8.1 ...

, he attended the

Chouinard Art Institute The Chouinard Art Institute was a professional art school founded in 1921 by Nelbert Murphy Chouinard (1879–1969) in the Westlake neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. In 1961, Walt and Roy Disney guided the merger of the Chouinard Art I ...

. Irvine died on March 30, 1976, in

Los Angeles, California Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

, after suffering an illness that prevented him from visiting the complete

Walt Disney World Resort The Walt Disney World Resort, also called Walt Disney World or Disney World, is an entertainment resort complex in Bay Lake and Lake Buena Vista, Florida, United States, near the cities of Orlando and Kissimmee. Opened on October 1, 1971, ...

, which opened in 1971. In his honor, one of the original Walt Disney World riverboats was named after him (See Richard F. Irvine Riverboat). However, it was renamed the ''Liberty Belle'' in 1996, following which one of the Magic Kingdom ferries was named in his honor.

Selected filmography

* '' Sundown'' (1941) * ''

The Three Caballeros ''The Three Caballeros'' is a 1944 American live-action/animated musical anthology film produced by Walt Disney and released by RKO Radio Pictures. The film premiered in Mexico City on December 21, 1944. It was released in the United States on ...

'' (1944) * ''

Miracle on 34th Street ''Miracle on 34th Street'' (initially released as ''The Big Heart'' in the United Kingdom) is a 1947 American Christmas comedy-drama film released by 20th Century Fox, written and directed by George Seaton and based on a story by Valentine Davi ...

'' (1947)

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Irvine, Richard American art directors Artists from Salt Lake City 1910 births 1976 deaths Disney imagineers Irvine, Richard F.