Edward Nassour
Encyclopedia
Edward Nassour born April 7, 1911, Colorado Springs, Colorado
, USA died December 15, 1962, Sherman Oaks, California, USA was an American producer, head of a motion picture studio, and a special effects animator. He was the brother and business partner of William Nassour.
Edward Nassour was a Los Angeles businessman engaged in aircraft manufacture with an interest in stop motion animation. In the early 1940s he teamed up with Walter Lantz
to make a stop motion Technicolor
dinosaur film for Columbia Pictures
entitled Lost Atlantis. Lantz and Nassour made a test reel but the venture proved too expensive and it was never completed. The two animators decided to form a company to make a series of stop motion films but the plan never eventuated.
In 1946 the Nassours purchased a four acre lot on Sunset Boulevard
and built a studio complex
featuring four stages, a projection room, dressing rooms, and offices. A variety of independent films and television shows were made there including Africa Screams
. After selling his studio complex, Edward supervised the dinosaur sequences in The Lost Continent
. Later the Nassours made the television series Sheena, Queen of the Jungle
in Mexico.
Nassour developed his special effects process he called Regiscope that Nassour claimed to have spent 18 years developing from his Lost Atlantis project. It was used in the Mexican international co-production
The Beast of Hollow Mountain
that Edward directed based on designs by Willis O'Brien
for his then unproduced
The Valley of Gwangi
.
Edward died of suicide through a self inflicted knife wound in the heart in 1962.
Colorado Springs, Colorado
Colorado Springs is a Home Rule Municipality that is the county seat and most populous city of El Paso County, Colorado, United States. Colorado Springs is located in South-Central Colorado, in the southern portion of the state. It is situated on Fountain Creek and is located south of the Colorado...
, USA died December 15, 1962, Sherman Oaks, California, USA was an American producer, head of a motion picture studio, and a special effects animator. He was the brother and business partner of William Nassour.
Edward Nassour was a Los Angeles businessman engaged in aircraft manufacture with an interest in stop motion animation. In the early 1940s he teamed up with Walter Lantz
Walter Lantz
Walter Benjamin Lantz was an American cartoonist, animator, film producer, and director, best known for founding Walter Lantz Productions and creating Woody Woodpecker.-Early years and start in animation:...
to make a stop motion Technicolor
Technicolor
Technicolor is a color motion picture process invented in 1916 and improved over several decades.It was the second major process, after Britain's Kinemacolor, and the most widely used color process in Hollywood from 1922 to 1952...
dinosaur film for Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production and distribution company. Columbia Pictures now forms part of the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment, a subsidiary of the Japanese conglomerate Sony. It is one of the leading film companies...
entitled Lost Atlantis. Lantz and Nassour made a test reel but the venture proved too expensive and it was never completed. The two animators decided to form a company to make a series of stop motion films but the plan never eventuated.
In 1946 the Nassours purchased a four acre lot on Sunset Boulevard
Sunset Boulevard
Sunset Boulevard is a street in the western part of Los Angeles County, California, that stretches from Figueroa Street in downtown Los Angeles to the Pacific Coast Highway at the Pacific Ocean in the Pacific Palisades...
and built a studio complex
Metromedia Square
Metromedia Square was a radio and television studio facility located at 5746 Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, on the southeastern corner of Sunset and Van Ness Avenue. For decades it was recognizable by the white, ladder-like snake on the building's roof...
featuring four stages, a projection room, dressing rooms, and offices. A variety of independent films and television shows were made there including Africa Screams
Africa Screams
Africa Screams is a 1949 comedy film starring Abbott and Costello and directed by Charles Barton.-Plot:Diana Emerson is in the book department of Klopper's Department store looking for a copy of the book Dark Safari, written by the famed explorer Cuddleford...
. After selling his studio complex, Edward supervised the dinosaur sequences in The Lost Continent
Lost Continent (1951 film)
The Lost Continent is an American science fiction film, starring Cesar Romero and Hillary Brooke directed by Sam Newfield and produced by his brother Sigmund Neufeld. This low budget independent film was shot in eleven days. The footage on the plateau where the dinosaurs lived was printed with...
. Later the Nassours made the television series Sheena, Queen of the Jungle
Sheena, Queen of the Jungle
Sheena, Queen of the Jungle is a fictional, American comic book jungle girl heroine, published originally by Fiction House. The female counterpart to Tarzan, Sheena had two things in common with Edgar Rice Burrough's Jungle Lord: Both possessed the ability to communicate with wild animals and were...
in Mexico.
Nassour developed his special effects process he called Regiscope that Nassour claimed to have spent 18 years developing from his Lost Atlantis project. It was used in the Mexican international co-production
International co-production
An international co-production is a production where two or more different production companies are working together, for example in a film production...
The Beast of Hollow Mountain
The Beast of Hollow Mountain
The Beast of Hollow Mountain is a 1956 scifi/horror western about an American cowboy living in Mexico who discovers his missing cattle are being preyed upon by an Allosaurus...
that Edward directed based on designs by Willis O'Brien
Willis O'Brien
Willis Harold O'Brien was an Irish American pioneering motion picture special effects artist who perfected and specialized in stop-motion animation. He was affectionately known to his family and close friends as "Obie"....
for his then unproduced
The Valley of Gwangi
The Valley of Gwangi
The Valley of Gwangi is a 1969 American western-fantasy film directed by Jim O'Connolly and written by William Bast. The film is also known as Gwangi, The Lost Valley, The Valley Time Forgot, and The Valley Where Time Stood Still...
.
Edward died of suicide through a self inflicted knife wound in the heart in 1962.
External links
- Nassour Studios http://employees.oxy.edu/jerry/nassour.htm