Nathan Juran

From Grokipedia

Nathan Juran (September 1, 1907 – October 23, 2002) was a Romanian-born American film art director and director, best known for his Academy Award-winning contributions to art direction and his later work in science fiction and fantasy cinema.

Born Naftuli Hertz Juran in Gura Humorului, Bukovina, Austria-Hungary (now Romania), to a Jewish family, he immigrated to the United States in 1912 with his parents, settling in Minneapolis. Juran earned a bachelor's degree in architecture from the University of Minnesota and a master's in architecture from MIT, and spent a summer on scholarship at L’École des Beaux-Arts in France, practicing as an architect before entering the film industry in 1937 as an art director at RKO and later 20th Century Fox.

In 1941, Juran shared the Academy Award for Best Art Direction (Black-and-White) for How Green Was My Valley, directed by John Ford, and received a nomination for The Razors Edge in 1946. He transitioned to directing in 1952 with The Black Castle and gained prominence in genre films, collaborating with stop-motion animator Ray Harryhausen on 20 Million Miles to Earth (1957), The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad (1958), and First Men in the Moon (1964). Other notable directorial efforts include the cult classic Attack of the 50 Foot Woman (1958, credited as Nathan Hertz) and westerns like Hellcats of the Navy (1957) starring Ronald Reagan. Juran also worked in television and received a Life Career Award from the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films for his enduring influence on the genres.

In brief

Naftuli Hertz "Nathan" Juran (September 1, 1907 – October 23, 2002) was a Romanian-born film art director, and later film and television director. As an art director, he won the Oscar for Best Art Direction in 1942 for How Green Was My Valley, along with Richard Day and Thomas Little. His work on The Razor's Edge in 1946 also received an Academy nomination.

In the 1950s, he began to direct, and was known for science fiction and fantasy films such as Attack of the 50 Foot Woman. He was the brother of quality guru Joseph M. Juran.