February 27 - Dorothea Redmond

Image courtesy findagrave.com

On this day, in 2009, Dorothea Holt Redmond passed away in Hollywood Hills, California. Born in Los Angeles on May 18, 1910, Dorothea became an architecture student at the University of Southern California earning her degree in 1933. She loved school so much, she rolled on into the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, earning a second degree in illustration in 1936.Two years later, she began working at Selznick International Pictures, the movie studio created by David O. Selznick, as the first woman to ever be hired as a Hollywood Production Designer.

The men Dorothea worked with were typical of their time (not that times have changed all that much in the last 81 years). Absolutely offended that anyone thought a woman could design a movie set, they insisted that she get her own, fully enclosed space to work, decidedly separate from them. I'd place money on the fact that the peace and quiet she got from that arrangement helped fuel the extraordinary work she produced. It wouldn't be long before Dorothea was considered the best illustrator working anywhere in the motion picture industry.

One of the people to notice Dorothea's talents was the director Alfred Hitchcock. Her aesthetic dovetailed perfectly into his own, giving him visual cues he could pass on to his cinematographers to help enhance the look of his films. Starting in 1940 with Rebecca, Dorothea and Alfred would work closely together on seven of his films, including Rear Window and To Catch a Thief. While the director was notoriously hard to work with, Dorothea declared him to be one of her favorite people in the industry, a sentiment which probably did as much to foster their relationship as her designs.

Not only did the Selznick studio bring Dorothea professional notice, it also brought her the love of her life. While working on pre-production designs for both Gone With the Wind and Rebecca, she met Harry Redmond Jr., who was working on the set of The Prisoner of Zelda at the time. They married in 1940, designed and built a house together and lived happily for the next 69 years.

Image courtesy Orange County Register

After her work in the film industry, Dorothea took a position with an architectural firm working under Charles Luckman and William Pereira. She designed interiors for both Los Angeles International Airport and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Later she was part of the team in charge of the Seattle Space Needle, but it was her firm's involvement in the Disneyland Hotel project that eventually earned her a place in this blog.

In 1966, WED Enterprises lured Dorothea away from her architecture career designing mundane things like airports and needles and introduced her to the exciting world of Imagineering. One of her first assignments was New Orleans Square in Disneyland. She helped shape the look of stores, restaurants and even created an apartment above the Pirates of the Caribbean attraction that would have been Walt's new residence within the park. The area, almost complete at the time of  Walt's death, was never used until 1987, when it became the Disney Gallery. It was refinished in 2008 to look exactly as Dorothea design it and to serve as the Disneyland Dream Suite, which was given to random guests to enjoy until its closure in 2014.

Image copyright Disney

Dorothea was also instrumental in helping bring Walt Disney World to life. She was in charge of the design team for Fantasyland and parts of Main Street, USA. And if you enjoy the mosaics as you walk through Cinderella Castle, you have her to thank, whether you're visiting Florida or Tokyo Disneyland. Fellow Imagineer Marty Sklar always felt that her sketches of places were extraordinary in their ability to bring a place out of imagination and into reality.

In 2008, Dorothea was made an official Disney Legend for her lasting contributions to Disney parks around the world. Less than a year later, she passed away at her home from congestive heart failure. She was 98.