Academy Award-winning production designer Barbara Ling passed away last Thursday in Santa Barbara at 73 from cancer.
Barbara leaves behind a legacy of iconic design work on films such as Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood and David Byrne’s True Stories. Most recently, she designed Michael, a biopic about the life of Michael Jackson which is currently in theaters.
Before becoming a production designer, Barbara designed sets and lighting for over 200 theater, opera and musical productions, including the 1981 HBO special The Pee-Wee Herman Show. Over the next four decades, she designed Diane Keaton’s Heaven, Oliver Stone’s The Doors, and Jon Avnet’s Fried Green Tomatoes. She was a frequent collaborator of director Joel Schumacher, for whom she designed Falling Down, Batman & Robin and Batman Forever.
The PDC hosted Barbara in 2020 for a talk about Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood, in which she shared her creative journey to recreate her hometown of Los Angeles in the 1970s.
In a Deadline interview about the film Barbara said, "Every new thing you do is a completely different set of rules and inventions."
"Design is just—your head doesn't stop. The excitement of thinking of things, and of how each each script responds to something else."
Barbara’s agent Jasan Pagni said in a statement, ““WME had the honor of representing Barbara Ling for the latter part of her career, and she was always a class act, a true pro and very kind. She took the time to tell entertaining stories about her career, and we shared many laughs.”
“My final contact with her, she was making sure I had tickets to the premiere of Michael while she was ailing in the hospital. I am very happy that so many moviegoers got to see her final work on the big screen with Michael. This film and others will leave a lasting legacy. Barbara will be missed by us all at WME.”
The Production Designers Collective mourns the loss of our member, Barbara Ling.
