Lee Zavitz

Who was Lee Zavitz?

Leland "Lee" Zavitz was a special effects technician. He was born in Mount Vernon, Washington. His first major impact was for his work on John Ford's 1937 film, The Hurricane. Zavitz won an Oscar in 1950 for the space fantasy Destination Moon. He also worked on films such as Around the World in Eighty Days, The Alamo, Sodom and Gomorrah, The Pink Panther and John Frankenheimer's The Train. His last film was Sydney Pollack's wartime chiller Castle Keep in 1969.

Zavitz held patents on several devices used in his film work, including fog machines, rain bombs, an exploding wagon and "a lightning torch that can be seen for 50 miles."