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 Daedline Hollywood 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 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.
