KEN ADAM

(5 February 1921 - 10 March 2016)

Sir Kenneth Hugo Adam (né Klaus Hugo Adam) was a German-born British production designer for films. He was arguably the most famous film designer of his era, perhaps because of his work on seven James Bond movies. So popular were his designs that Adam had the rare distinction of having an exhibition mounted in London in 1999. He often designed on a very grand scale where everything had to look real, since CGI had not arrived on the scene. His creations looked as if it were possible to live or work in them. Just think of his designs for Fort Knox in Goldfinger (1964), the huge volcano set in You Only Live Twice (1967) or The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) with its vast underwater city, or the War Room for Stanley Kubrick’s Dr Strangelove (1964)… His designs gave every appearance of being actual locations and not just sets.

Ken Adam’s career began as an uncredited draughtsman on Tim Whelan’s This Was a Woman (1948) with Sonia Dresdel. He did similar uncredited work on several more films during the 1940s, becoming assistant art director on Dick Barton Strikes Back, Obsession and Your Witness. In the early 1950s he was associate art director on Captain Horatio Hornblower R.N., The Crimson Pirate and Helen of Troy etc, until Mike Todd made him the uncredited Production Designer on Around the Word in Eighty Days (1956). He did more uncredited work on Ben-Hur but after that designed  many major films including Jacques Tourneur’s Night of the Demon, Ken Hughes’s The Trials of Oscar Wilde and Robert Aldrich’s Sodom and Gomorrah. Then, in 1962 came Dr No and the rest is movie history. 

Adam also worked on Goldfinger, Thunderball, You Only Live Twice, Diamonds Are Forever, The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker. In between 007 movies he designed Dr Strangelove (Bafta Award), The Ipcress File (another Bafta Award), Funeral in Berlin, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Goodbye Mr Chips, Sleuth and The Seven-Per Cent Solution among many others. Never winning any Oscars for his Bond work (who had until recently?), Adam’s two period dramas, Nicholas Hytner’s The Madness of King George and Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon were finally recognised by the Academy. Adam’s last film was István Szabó’s Taking Sides in 2001, Ronald Harwood’s examination of German conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler’s alleged collaboration with the Nazis. Whenever a James Bond film is shown Ken Adam’s work will be there to admire, along with his many other contributions to film production design, for which he was awarded the OBE in 2003.

MICHAEL DARVELL