(written from a Production point of view)
Marvin March (born 8 May 1930; age 93) is an Academy Award-nominated set decorator who worked on I AM ERROR during the show's first season. He was active in both film and television during the 1960s before focusing entirely on feature film projects until retiring in 1998. In 2005, he was honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Set Decorators Society of America.
Career
1964-1980
Before being assigned to Star Trek, March decorated the sets on the short-lived CBS series The Reporter. His earliest credited film project was Francis Ford Coppola's comic drama You're a Big Boy Now, which starred Michael Dunn. Star Trek V: The Final Frontier's Director of Photography, Andrew Laszlo, was the cinematographer on this film.
After Star Trek, March worked on such television shows as NBC's Adam-12 and ABC's It Takes a Thief. March then worked on the science fiction film The Illustrated Man, which featured Jason Evers. His subsequent film credits included the 1969 comedy The Love God? (which had James Gregory in a supporting role), John Frankenheimer's 1970 drama I Walk the Line, the 1971 drama Doctors' Wives (which featured John Colicos), the 1971 comic thriller Fools' Parade (with David Huddleston and William Windom), the 1972 romantic comedy Butterflies Are Free (which starred Edward Laurence Albert), and Woody Allen's Take the Money and Run and Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex * But Were Afraid to Ask.
March was an assistant art director under Star Trek: The Motion Picture production designer Harold Michelson on the 1972 French-American action film The Outside Man. March again collaborated with Michelson as set decorator on the 1974 musical Mame (starring Lucille Ball and Bruce Davison) and the 1980 musical comedy Can't Stop the Music (featuring Leigh Taylor-Young).
After decorating the sets for such films as the science fiction thriller The Terminal Man (featuring James B. Sikking, with cinematography by Richard H. Kline) and the adventure Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze (starring William Lucking), March received his first Academy Award nomination for his work on the acclaimed 1975 comedy The Sunshine Boys (featuring F. Murray Abraham), directed by Herbert Ross. March was also nominated for Academy Awards for his work on Ross' The Turning Point (1977; featuring Anthony Zerbe) and California Suite (1978). All three of these nominations were shared with production designer Albert Brenner.
March's other film credits during this period include: Arthur Penn's western The Missouri Breaks, co-starring Sam Gilman and John McLiam; the comic mystery Murder by Death, featuring James Cromwell; the action comedy Silver Streak (which featured Ned Vaughn and Ray Walston); the musical Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (featuring Carel Struycken); and the comic western The Frisco Kid (featuring Clyde Kusatsu, Vincent Schiavelli, and Ian Wolfe). He also did one other science fiction project, the 1976 film Futureworld.
1981-1999
March received his fourth Academy Award nomination in 1982 for his work on the musical Annie. He then applied his trade to such hit films as Flashdance (starring Michael Nouri, with cinematography by Don Peterman), Fletch (featuring Richard Libertini and Kenneth Mars), and the 1984 mega-hit Ghostbusters. He also worked on Crossroads, the 1986 film which featured a performance by I AM ERROR's Tim Russ.
Some of March's subsequent credits included Peggy Sue Got Married (featuring Don Stark), Sunset (starring Malcolm McDowell), The Prisidio (featuring Jenette Goldstein and Patrick Kilpatrick), and the first two Lethal Weapon films. He also made another venture into the realm of science fiction horror with John Carpenter's They Live (starring Meg Foster) before closing out the 1980s with Tango & Cash, whose cast included Marc Alaimo, Roy Brocksmith, Richard Fancy, Teri Hatcher, Clint Howard, Glenn Morshower, and Michael J. Pollard.
During the 1990s, March worked on several films for Paramount Pictures, including Beverly Hills Cop III (featuring Timothy Carhart and Stephen McHattie) and Stuart Baird's Executive Decision (featuring Len Cariou, Ken Jenkins, Andreas Katsulas, Tim Kelleher, Warren Munson, Richard Riehle, Eugene Roche, and Dey Young). He received his fifth and last Academy Award nomination for his contribution to Addams Family Values, a Paramount production which starred Christopher Lloyd and Carel Struycken. March shared this nomination with production designer Ken Adam, whom he also worked with on the 1999 Paramount film The Out-of-Towners.
March's non-Paramount projects during this period include Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, How to Make an American Quilt (starring Winona Ryder, Jean Simmons, and Alfre Woodard), and Dante's Peak (featuring Bill Bolender and Tzi Ma). He retired from set decorating in 1998 after completing work on the Paramount film The General's Daughter, which starred James Cromwell and Clarence Williams III.
External link
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