Background
Tavoularis, Dean was born on May 18, 1932 in Lowell, Massachusetts, United States. Son of Nicholas John and Pota (Georges) Tavoularis.
Motion picture production designer
Tavoularis, Dean was born on May 18, 1932 in Lowell, Massachusetts, United States. Son of Nicholas John and Pota (Georges) Tavoularis.
He studied architecture and painting at different art schools and landed a job at the Disney Studios first as an in-betweener in the animation department, and later as a storyboard artist.
Although born in Lowell, Massachusetts, to Greek immigrant parents, Tavoularis spent his entire childhood and teenage years in Los Angeles, in the shadow of the Hollywood studios. In 1967, Arthur Penn called him to take charge of the artistic direction of Bonnie and Clyde. Three years later, Penn called him once again to design Little Big Manitoba
But it was working with Francis Ford Coppola in 1972 on The Godfather that set the creative tone of his career.
The Godfather Participant II and The Conversation, in 1974, consolidated their collaboration, and laid the way for what was to be their joint creative challenge: Apocalypse Now, the film for which Tavoularis created a nightmare jungle kingdom, inspired by Angkor Wat. (Clément"s role was eventually edited out of the final cut of the film, and only restored in the Apocalypse Now Redux version in 2001.
Foreign the 1982 release One from the Heart he recreated both the Las Vegas "strip" and McCarran International Airport on the sound stages of Zoetrope Studios. The list of directors with whom he has worked includes: Michelangelo Antonioni (Zabriskie Point, 1970), Wim Wenders (Hammett, 1982), Warren Beatty (Bulworth, 1998) and Roman Polanski (The Ninth Gate, 1999).
Married Barbara Joan Wiess. Children: Alison, Gina. Married Aurore Clement, September 7, 1980.