Charles Lisanby

Charles Lisanby was interviewed for two-and-a-half hours in Los Angeles, CA.  Lisanby talked about how, at age ten, he build a scale model of Radio City Music Hall based on an article he read that included plans of the stage.  Additionally, he described how he would listen to radio broadcasts of the operas that originated from the Met and design sets for them.  He talked about his studies in art school and about one of his first jobs in New York, painting a mural at the Friar’s Club, and how this led to his work in television at CBS (through Friar member Ralph Levy).  He talked about joining the television stage designers union and detailed the test that was required of all applicants.  He discussed his work in the early 1950s for ABC and soon thereafter CBS, where he worked on such series as the game show The $64,000 Challenge and the cultural series Camera Three.  He talked about his continued work at CBS, notably on the nighttime version of The Garry Moore Show, where he came up with several unusual designs.  He then talked about his association with the NBC variety series The Kraft Music Hal l.  Lisanby listed several shows that featured his signature large block lettering, notably the use of Robert Indiana’s LOVE on Kraft Music Hall and the word SMILE as a backdrop to the Candid Camera set.  He also described his innovative use of lights on the risers of steps as well as the use of neon on television (initially on the Emmy Awards).  He described his later work on such programs as the 1974 Benjamin Franklin miniseries (creating an enormous Versailles set) and the 1988 60th anniversary of the Academy Awards that featured the large Oscar statuettes as set pieces (and how they were shown to be helicoptered over the Hollywood sign).  He spoke in great detail about his friendship with artist Andy Warhol: how they met, their trip to Japan together (that led to Warhol’s interest in gold leaf), and their estrangement due to Lisanby’s disinterest in the “factory” lifestyle.  Among other subjects he commented on were: appearing as a child in a TV demonstration of Philo T. Farnsworth, working on the 1951 Broadway revival of “Romeo and Juliet,” early CBS color television, creating the set for the television version of Applause (which he based on Lauren Bacall’s real apartment), his special Baryshnikov on Broadway, and his work as the principal designer at Radio City Music Hall for many years.  B-roll consisted of several photos and production sketches from such series as The Kraft Music Hall, Camera Three, and Baryshnikov on Broadway.   The interview was conducted by Karen Herman on March 22, 2007.