Boris Leven

Who was Boris Leven?

Boris Leven was a Russian-born Academy Award-winning art director and production designer whose Hollywood career spanned fifty-three years.

Born in Moscow, Leven emigrated to the United States in 1927 and became a naturalized citizen in 1938. After receiving a Bachelor of Arts in architecture from the University of Southern California, he attended the Beaux-Arts Institute of Design in New York City.

Leven began his film career as a sketch artist at Paramount Pictures in 1933 and moved to 20th Century Fox three years later. His first screen credit was as the art director for Alexander's Ragtime Band, which garnered him the first of nine Oscar nominations.

The designs Leven created over the years ranged from realistic to highly stylistic. For Giant, he constructed the Victorian home that sits isolated in a wide expanse of open field, which became an iconic image for the film. His work for West Side Story, which won him the Academy Award for Best Color Art Direction, included actual New York City locations combined with a tenement rooftop and fire escape, inspired by the more abstract stage production, that were built on a soundstage. For New York, New York, he created a fantasized version of Manhattan set in the 1940s.