Out of all the USC alumni waiting to hear their name announced at Sunday night’s Oscars, only one can sit back knowing he’s already won. While the other film-industry nominees sit nerve-wracked in their seats, Robert Boyle will be sitting pretty. That’s because the 98-year old Boyle, a retired art-director/production designer and graduate of USC’s school of architecture in 1933, is the 2008 winner of the Honorary Oscar.

–

Born in 1909, Boyle has truly witnessed the entire emergence and evolution of 20th century cinema. Shortly after graduating USC, Boyle lost his job in the Great Depression. After a stint as a film-extra, Boyle was hired as a draftsman at Paramount, then later an Art Director at Universal. In his early career, Boyle worked as an associate art director with the master of suspense Alfred Hitchcock. Boyle became the full fledged production designer on such classics as North by Northwest, The Birds, It Came from Outer Space, The Thomas Crown Affair and Fiddler on the Roof.

Boyle helped bring this now famous finale to life, with Carey Grant leading Eva Marie Saint across the faces of Mount Rushmore in Hitchcock’s North by Northwest. Image from home.nau.edu

Boyle worked all the way into the early 1990s with titles like Staying Alive, The Explorers and Troop Beverly Hills. The 98-year old Boyle will join the ranks of other famous filmmakers and actors to win the honorary award including: Walt Disney, Carey Grant, Greta Garbo, Orson Wells, Charley Chaplin, Sidney Poitier, Robert Redford, Peter O’Toole, Sidney Lumet and Robert Altman to name a few.

*