Stuart Craig, Oscar-winning production designer on The English Patient and Harry Potter, dies aged 83 | Movies

Stuart Craig, the multi-Oscar profitable manufacturing designer for The English Affected person, The Elephant Man and the Harry Potter movies, has died aged 83.His household instructed the Guardian he had died peacefully at dwelling on Sunday after 14 years with Parkinson’s illness. “Our beloved husband and father, deeply beloved and revered, was not solely recognized for his expertise but additionally for his kindness and we’re moved by listening to of what number of lives he touched. He’ll stay on in our hearts ceaselessly.”Craig labored on a glittering array of high-profile British and Hollywood movies from the early Eighties onwards, profitable finest artwork course Oscars for Gandhi, Harmful Liaisons and The English Affected person and was nominated for eight extra, together with for 4 Potters. His file on the Baftas was much more spectacular: 16 nominations and three wins.David Heyman, producer of the Harry Potter collection, mentioned: “Stuart Craig was one of many best manufacturing designers to work in movie. He was additionally the kindest, most beneficiant and supportive man. He had beautiful style and a beautiful sense of story. He additionally had the extraordinary means to convey out the perfect in everybody round him. It was a privilege to work with him, and to be in his orbit.” David Yates, director of the ultimate 4 Potter movies, mentioned: “Stuart was a pricey good friend and colleague: he was a large in our trade, sleek, gifted, cussed and at all times nurturing and supporting rising design expertise. We are going to all miss him an important deal.”David Puttnam, who collaborated with Craig on The Mission, Cal and Memphis Belle mentioned: “Not solely was Stuart essentially the most inventively gifted manufacturing designer of his technology, however as a person and a departmental head he actually ranks among the many most exemplary collaborators I ever had the privilege of working with. Stuart generated essentially the most unbelievable sense of loyalty amongst his staff, one thing which sprung naturally from a debt he felt he owed to these with whom he’d labored, and who had helped him, early in his profession. Dropping Stuart is a really unhappy day for the entire of the British movie trade – he and his affect will probably be massively missed.”Luxurious … John Malkovich And Glenn Shut in Harmful Liaisons. {Photograph}: Archive Pictures/Getty ImagesBorn in Norwich in 1942, Craig studied movie design on the Royal Faculty of Artwork earlier than working within the artwork division on quite a lot of movies within the 60s and 70s, together with the Bond spoof On line casino Royale, the Albert Finney musical Scrooge, and the George Macdonald Fraser adaptation Royal Flash. Craig established himself as an artwork director on the struggle epic A Bridge Too Far and superhero flick Superman, earlier than making his breakthrough as manufacturing designer on The Elephant Man, David Lynch’s brilliantly atmospheric fable of Victorian London.The latter movie secured his first Oscar nomination, and Craig adopted it up by reuniting with A Bridge Too Far director Richard Attenborough on the latter’s long-gestating Gandhi biopic. Conceived on a colossal scale (with the funeral scene alone estimated to have 300,000 extras), it received Craig his first Oscar, one of many movie’s complete haul of eight, together with finest image and finest director for Attenborough.Craig went on to play an important position in a number of the most profitable and high-profile movies of the following 4 a long time, turning into finest recognized for lavish interval units rendered in luxurious element. After Gandhi, he designed The Mission for director Roland Joffé, received his second Oscar for 18th-century-set Harmful Liaisons, and labored with Attenborough once more on Chaplin, one other biopic. In 1997 Craig’s achieved probably his excessive level in critical interval drama, profitable his third Oscar for The English Affected person, tailored from Michael Ondaatje’s novel. Shortly thereafter Craig accomplished in all probability his finest recognized non-period movie: the Richard Curtis romcom Notting Hill.‘Hogwarts was his creation’ … Craig at The Harry Potter Expertise in London. {Photograph}: Rune Hellestad/Corbis/Getty ImagesCraig was then employed for what’s prone to stay his excellent achievement, designing all eight Harry Potter movies, starting with Harry Potter and the Thinker’s Stone, directed by Chris Columbus and launched in 2001. He later instructed the Guardian: “I used to be adorning a bed room for my as-yet-unborn grandson after I acquired the decision to come back to Los Angeles and meet David and Chris. I learn the novel on the airplane over. My first response was fright: ‘How the hell are we going to do that?’” He and his crew took over Leavesden studios, a repurposed former aerodrome, and the studio grew to become famend for the dizzying number of units and workshops that Craig constructed. Heyman mentioned: “Stuart Craig was important to the movies’ success, no query. Hogwarts is his creation, his imaginative and prescient.” After the movies completed manufacturing, Craig was requested to design the Wizarding World of Harry Potter theme parks, and continued his collaboration with the Potter movie franchise by designing the three Improbable Beasts movies, launched between 2016 and 2022.Craig’s most valued collaborator was set decorator Stephenie McMillan, whom he labored with on 16 movies, starting with Chaplin and taking in The English Affected person, Notting Hill and all of the Potter movies. On McMillan’s dying in 2013, Craig wrote: “Her work was at all times characterised by technical finesse, class and wit.”Craig was married to Patricia Stangroom in 1965, who survives him together with two youngsters, Becky and Laura, and 4 grandchildren.