Career Highlights: Unforgiven, The Sting, To Kill a Mockingbird
First Major Screen Credit: My Own True Love (1948)
Biography
An A.B.A. graduate from the University of Southern California, Henry Bumstead began his long career as a Hollywood art director and set designer in 1948 as assistant to Paramount's Hans Dreier. On his own, Bumstead worked on several of Alfred Hitchcock's best features, earning an Academy Award nomination for Vertigo (1958). Moving to Universal in the early '60s, Bumstead won Oscars for his contributions to 1962's To Kill a Mockingbird and 1973's The Sting. Still active in his ninth decade, Henry Bumstead worked on Clint Eastwood's The Unforgiven (1992) -- securing still another Oscar nomination -- and A Perfect World (1993). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
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Flags of Our Fathers (2006) and the companion film Letters from Iwo Jima (2007) were Bumstead's final two projects. Bumstead was 91 years old when he worked on these projects. He died before either film was released into theaters, and Flags of Our Fathers was dedicated to him (the credit dedicates the film to him using his nickname "Bummy".)