Education
After receiving a Bachelor of Arts in architecture from the University of Southern California, he attended the Beaux-Arts Institute of Design in New York City.
After receiving a Bachelor of Arts in architecture from the University of Southern California, he attended the Beaux-Arts Institute of Design in New York City.
Born in Moscow in the family of Israel Levin and Zinaida Narkirier. Leven emigrated to the United States in 1927 and became a naturalized citizen in 1938. Leven began his film career as a sketch artist at Paramount Pictures in 1933 and moved to 20th Century Fox three years later.
His first screen cr was as the art director for Alexander"s Ragtime Band (1938), which garnered him the first of nine Oscar nominations.
The designs Leven created over the years ranged from realistic to highly stylistic. Foreign Giant (1956), he constructed the Victorian home that sits isolated in a wide expanse of open field, which became an iconic image for the film.
Foreign New York, New York (1977), he created a fantasized version of Manhattan set in the 1940s. As an art director, Leven contributed to The Flying Deuces (1939), Hello Frisco, Hello (1943), Invaders from Mars (1953), The Silver Chalice (1954), and Jonathan Livingston Seagull (1973), among others
His credits as production designer include Donovan"s Brain (1953), Anatomy of a Murder (1959), Two for the Seesaw (1962), The Sand Pebbles (1966), The Sound of Music (1965), Star! (1968), The Andromeda Strain (1971), Mandingo (1975), The Last Waltz (1978), The King of Comedy (1982), Fletch (1985) and The Color of Money (1986).
Leven wed Vera Glooshkoff on February 8, 1946. He died in Los Angeles, California. Mistress Leven died at the age of 101 in June 2011.
Prior to her death she had passed several of Boris Leven"s paintings and film drawings to the University of Southern California and New York"s Museum of Modern Art.