Barbara Lynn, the Oscar-winning production designer for “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” who also designed films such as “The Doors” and “Michael,” died of cancer on July 9. She was 73 years old.
Lin’s career spanned four decades, during which time he worked on Oliver Stone’s The Doors and Joel Schumacher’s Falling Down. She designed the sets for Antoine Fuqua’s Michael Jackson biopic Michael and won an Oscar for her work on Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
A native of Los Angeles, Lin began his career in theater and opera, working as a lighting designer for specials on “The Pee-wee Herman Show” in 1981. She moved into film when David Byrne hired her to design his directorial debut, True Stories.
Schumacher also commissioned her to design sets for Batman movies such as Batman & Robin and Batman Forever. Other notable films in which she served as production designer include Less Than Zero, Fried Green Tomatoes, Making Mr. Right, and Diane Keaton’s Heaven.
When designing Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Lin spent 12 grueling weeks preparing. The characters and backstories were woven seamlessly throughout the screenplay in such a way that they lovingly embraced the landscape of western towns and ranches, with highways, hills, roads, the San Fernando Valley, and Hollywood Boulevard all painted over backgrounds and facades with period-specific signage such as 1969 Hollywood, mid-century homes and vintage vehicles.
Director Lin’s film crew prepared and filmed one side of Hollywood Boulevard at a time so as not to disrupt tourism activities on Hollywood Boulevard.
In 2019, she told Variety that she sourced the original blacklight poster on eBay. “The great thing about this movie is that there are a lot of people that we brought back to life in this movie, especially the poster artists who were duped. They signed the rights to the posters at the time. We were able to pay royalties to some of the people who are still alive to use their work. Quentin appreciated and loved those stories. That’s what’s unique about it, too, and he wants to hear those stories,” Lin said.
She won Variety’s Artisan Award for Production Design at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival, where she spoke about her work with Tarantino. “His love for the director is like a kid in a candy store,” Lin said, referring to every detail of the director’s language, adding that being around his infectious energy was “a unique experience.”
Lin also worked on “A Man Called Otto,” starring Tom Hanks. Rita Wilson, who produced the film, wrote on Instagram: “Barbara Lynn was the production designer on A Man Called Otto. In 2020, she won an Oscar for production design on Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. She and Tarante What she did with this movie was extraordinary, as there were no special effects or CGI when Eno created Hollywood in the 70’s. When we were filming in 2019, I saw the reality, detail and creativity of her work and knew it had to be her who brought A Man Called Barbara to visual reality, and she was one of the greats.
She is survived by her wife Lindsay and sons Clay and Will.
