Barbara Ling, the Oscar-winning production designer who transformed present-day Los Angeles into 1969 Hollywood for Quentin Tarantino, has died. She was 73.
Ling died Thursday in Santa Barbara after a battle with cancer, a spokesperson for WME told The Hollywood Reporter.
Her work on Once Upon a Time in Hollywood earned her the 2020 Academy Award for production design alongside set decorator Nancy Haigh.
Ling Rebuilt 1969 Los Angeles Across More Than 150 Sets
Ling designed more than 150 sets for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, according to a 2019 Filmmaker interview. Rather than depend heavily on digital recreations, the production altered real storefronts, roads, restaurants, theaters, billboards and building exteriors around Los Angeles.
Hollywood Boulevard was returned to its late-1960s appearance, while lost locations such as Spahn Ranch had to be rebuilt. Ling’s team also created a period Taco Bell, restored signs for the Pussycat Theater and Larry Edmunds Bookshop, and worked at surviving locations including Musso & Frank Grill, El Coyote and the Playboy Mansion.
Ling’s later credits included Random Hearts, Hearts in Atlantis, No Reservations, The Lucky One and the Tom Hanks drama A Man Called Otto. She also served as production designer on Michael, Antoine Fuqua’s Michael Jackson biopic starring Jaafar Jackson.
Ling, who grew up in Los Angeles, remembered the city during the period depicted in the film. She told Architectural Digest that 1969 had been “such a vivid period of color,” with neon and Op Art influencing the film’s visual design. The Academy awarded Ling and Haigh best production design at the 92nd Oscars. It was Ling’s first Oscar nomination and win.
Her Career Moved From Theater to Film
Ling began in theater and worked on The Pee-wee Herman Show before establishing her film career. Her first feature production-design credit came on David Byrne’s 1986 musical comedy True Stories, followed by projects including Making Mr. Right, Less Than Zero and Men Don’t Leave.
She recreated another earlier version of Los Angeles for Oliver Stone’s The Doors and designed the Alabama settings of Fried Green Tomatoes, on which she also served as an associate producer.
Her collaboration with Joel Schumacher included Falling Down, Batman Forever and Batman & Robin. The two Batman films gave Ling a much different kind of world to build, turning Gotham City into a heightened, neon-filled comic-book landscape.
