Ben Carré

Ben Carré (1883–1978) was a French art director and painter who settled in the United States. He designed sets for dozens of Hollywood films including The Blue Bird, The Phantom of the Opera, Don Juan, The Jazz Singer, and A Night at the Opera. He was a founding member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Career Ben Carré was born in Paris, France in 1883. His father, a professional painter and decorator, died when Carré was six-years-old. At thirteen, Carré left school to become an apprentice house-painting estimator. Finding his talent lay in painting rather than arithmetic, he took a job as an assistant scene painter at Atelier Amable, at the time one of the most important scenic art studios in Paris. One of his first jobs was painting a large-scale reproduction of the Paris World's Fair for London's Earl Court Exhibition Hall. Within two years he was designing and painting backgrounds for the Opera, the Comédie-Française, and Covent Garden in London.

Selected filmography

Trilby (1915) Barbary Sheep (1917) The Poor Little Rich Girl (1917) The Blue Bird (1918) In Old Kentucky (1919) The River's End (1920) The Last of the Mohicans (1920) The Light in the Dark (1922) The Phantom of the Opera (1925) Soft Cushions (1927) The Jazz Singer (1927) The Red Dance (1928) Hot for Paris (1929) The Iron Mask (1929) City Girl The Black Camel (1931) A Night at the Opera (1935) Dante's Inferno (1935) The Mine with the Iron Door (1936) Pluck of the Irish (1936)