Alexander Golitzen (1908-2005) was a prolific Academy Award-winning film production designer and art director. Born in Moscow, Russia, Golitzen immigrated to the United States in 1917, fleeing the Russian Revolution. Golitzen's career in film production began in the early 1930s, and in 1942 began his long-term association with Universal Studios as their Art Director. Golitzen is credited with creating the look and feel of hundreds of movies of significance through the mid-20th century, including Gunsmoke (1953), My Man Godfrey (1957), and films by Douglas Sirk, among others. Nominated for fourteen Academy Awards, Golitzen won in Art Direction for Foreign Correspondent (1940), The Phantom of the Opera (1943), Spartacus (1960), amd To Kill a Mockingbird (1962).

Hecht-Hill-Lancaster Productions was a film production company that lasted from the late 1940s-1960. Created by actor Burt Lancaster and and his agent Harold Hecht, literary agent Harold Hecht eventually joined the company, which was quite successful throughout the 1950s. Notable films to come out of the production company include Marty (1955), Sweet Smell of Success (1957), Separate Tables (1958), The Devil's Disciple (1959), and Birdman of Alcatraz (1962).