Lyle R. Wheeler

Lyle Reynolds Wheeler (February 2, 1905 – January 10, 1990) was an American motion picture art director. He received five Academy Awards — for Gone with the Wind, Anna and the King of Siam (1946), The Robe (1953), The King and I (1956) and The Diary of Anne Frank (1959). The first of them was a solo award;, and the other four were shared.

Biography Lyle Wheeler came to Long Beach, California, as a youth and studied architecture at the University of Southern California, from which he later received an honorary degree.

Late in life, Wheeler suffered financial reverses and was forced to sell his home. He lost his five Academy Award statuettes when he was unable to pay a bill in excess of $30,000 at a storage facility. The statuettes were sold in July 1986 at an auction of goods belonging to tenants who had fallen behind on storage fees; a couple from Long Beach bought several unmarked boxes at $20 each and found the five Oscars inside. Twenty-two of Wheeler's 29 Academy Award nomination plaques were later returned to him after the auction company wrote to the buyers on his behalf.

Lyle Wheeler died on January 10, 1990, at the Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital, of pneumonia. At his death he was described by the Los Angeles Times as the dean of the art directors who had shaped the look of Hollywood's golden age.

Wins 1939: Gone with the Wind 1946: Anna and the King of Siam 1953: The Robe 1956: The King and I 1959: The Diary of Anne Frank

Nominations 1937: The Prisoner of Zenda 1938: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer 1940: Rebecca 1944: Laura 1945: Leave Her to Heaven 1947: The Foxes of Harrow 1949: Come to the Stable 1950: All About Eve 1951: Fourteen Hours, House on Telegraph Hill, David and Bathsheba, On the Riviera 1952: My Cousin Rachel, Viva Zapata!, The Snows of Kilimanjaro 1953: The President's Lady, Titanic 1954: Desirée 1955: Daddy Long Legs, Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing 1956: Teenage Rebel 1958: A Certain Smile 1959: Journey to the Center of the Earth 1963: The Cardinal