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Obituaries
Richard
Levin
BBC
design stalwart, 1910-2000
As
the head of design for BBC Television from 1953 to 1971, Richard Levin, who has
died at 89, was the individual who set the visual stamp on the service
throughout its great period of expansion and innovation, including the switch
from black-and-white to colour in 1967-69.
Television
"design" in those days meant everything from the scenery for a grand
opera to the seating plan for a panel game or the graphics illustrating a plain
man's guide to the economy. It could be sinister Martian creatures in a
Quatermass serial or a new set for the teenage pop show, Six-Five Special, to
help young viewers feel a part of the proceedings rather than merely spectators.
Levin
drove it all along by sheer enthusiasm, energy and a disregard for red tape.
"He was a nightmare to the administrators," according to his widow,
the former BBC producer Patricia Foy, but a steadfast supporter of such gifted
designers as Clifford Hatts, Natasha Kroll, Eileen Diss, Stephen Taylor, Richard
Greenough and the special-effects wizard Jack Kine. He was also a good talent
spotter, often finding future designers among scene-painters and carpenters.
From
the age of seven, when he was given a box camera, the young Levin was devoted to
photography. He left Clayesmore private school at 17 to become a trainee with
Gaumont-British Films. There he was attracted to the design side, rose to be an
assistant art director and, after studying at the Slade and in Paris, entered
the world of industrial and exhibition design, including, prophetically, a stint
with the pre war television service at Alexandra Palace.
During
the war, he worked for the Air Ministry as a camouflage
officer and for the Ministry of Information as an exhibition designer.
For the 1951 Festival of Britain he designed the travelling exhibition The Land,
which earned him an OBE.
Two
years later, just as television was taking off, he got the opportunity to rejoin
the BBC at the top. Though "design" embraced every aspect of
television output, it was in drama, variety and big spectacles that it was most
noticed. Levin found that painted scenery flats were still the norm. In the
cramped little studios of Alexandra Palace, there had been no alternative, but
now Lime Grove and Riverside were available there was no need for such
two-dimensional illusion. He set about giving plays, especially,
three-dimensional sets, in which the camera could move about as a privileged
observer.
In
1960, he published a book, Television By Design, in which he pointed out that
the designer's talents existed to serve the needs of the writer and director.
For the majority of these clients, and certainly most viewers, that meant
absolute realism.
Anticipating
the agitation for more expressive forms of storytelling which would arise a few
years later, however, Levin looked forward to a time when the designer might
contribute to the initial concept of a program. He set up specialist
photographic and graphics units, personally designed the BBC logo and conducted
experiments with a widescreen format. But, with colour on the horizon, there was
no money to pursue the project.
Another
of Levin's sidelines, rather unusual in a BBC department head, was to always
carry his camera with him and take portraits of all the great and famous who
came to the studios. When he retired from broadcasting, he turned this hobby
into his profession, specialising in portraiture. He
was elected a Royal Designer for Industry in 1971, and awarded the Royal
Television Society's Silver Medal the following year.
Away
from the studios, his passion was fishing, though he had many other enthusiasms.
Levin
was married twice, first to Evelyn Alexander, with whom he had two
daughters, and later, in 1960, to Patricia Foy.
The
Guardian, London