The Art Directors Guild is honoring four members with its Lifetime Achievement Award during their 21st annual Art Directors Guild Excellence in Production Design Awards, set for February 11 at Hollywood and Highland. Scenic artist Albert Obie Obregon, Emmy-nominated set designer Cate Bangs, senior illustrator Joseph Musso and Emmy-winning production designer René Lagler will receive the awards, ADG Council Chairperson Marcia Hinds and awards producer Thomas Wilkins announced this morning.
Art Directors Guild
With credits spanning sitcoms, game shows, variety shows, specials, musicals and soap operas, Obregon spent 29 years at NBC Studios from 1958-1987, heading the studios scenic art department. The shows he worked on include The Bob Hope Show, Bright Promise, Days Of Our Lives, High Rollers, Hollywood Squares, Lets Make A Deal, Peyton Place, Sanford And Son, The Tonight Show, Welcome Back, Kotter and Wheel Of Fortune. His credits on variety shows, specials and musicals include for Andy Williams, Dean Martin, Dinah Shore, Flip Wilson, Frank Sinatra, Jerry Lewis and Mitzi Gaynor. After leaving NBC, he started his own company Premiere Scenery, working on the Golden Globes, American Music Awards, Pee-Wee Herman Show, and concerts for Madonna, Gloria Estefan and Ringo Starr. He later joined ABC Studios.
Bangs has worked in the industry for over 35 years on films and TV shows such as Private Practice, Desperate Housewives, Charmed, Home Alone 3 and Robin Hood: Men In Tights. In 1998, she earned an Emmy and Art Directors Guild nomination for the ABC television series Nothing Sacred. She also worked as an art director on Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising, Life, Ouija, The Fighting Temptations and RoboCop 3; and as an assistant art director on Beverly Hills Cop II, Cobra and Blue City. She also was the one-time treasurer of the Art Directors Guild, president of IATSE Local 847, and is currently a trustee of the ADG Set Designers Counsel.
Musso has spent over 46 years in the film and TV industry, having worked with filmmakers such as Alfred Hitchcock, Blake Edwards, Clint Eastwood, John Huston, Jules Dassin, Mike Nichols, Norman Jewison, Richard Brooks and Steven Spielberg. His credits as a production illustrator include Teleios, The Hateful Eight, The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button, Monk, Flags Of Our Fathers, Vanilla Sky, Space Cowboys, Basic Instinct, The Flash, Dick Tracy and Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? Musso’s credits as a storyboard artist include 90210, Shes Out Of My League, Be Cool, Hulk, The Italian Job, Ladder 49, DragonHeart, The Scarlet Letter and Addams Family Values. His specialty is in researching historic events and scenes.
Lagler is five-time Emmy winner and production designer of more than 2,500 TV shows and other events. He designed the 57th Academy Awards for which he won an Emmy; the Grammy Awards from 1983-1987; the Emmy Awards; and the Country Music Awards from 1991-2006. He was production designer for the 1984 Summer Olympics opening and closing ceremonies and for the Statue of Liberty 100th anniversary celebration, for which he also won an Emmy.
ADG Lifetime Achievement Awards are awarded to outstanding individuals in each of the guild’s four crafts: Art Directors; Scenic, Title and Graphic Artists; Illustrators and Matte Artists; and Set Designers and Model Makers.
Nominations for the ADG Awards will be announced January 5.
