Burr Smidt; Art Director for Movies, Theater, Television

Burr Smidt, art director for early television, Broadway and such motion pictures as “A Thousand Clowns” and “The Young Savages,” has died. He was 73.

Smidt died Tuesday in his native Venice, Fla.

Most active in Hollywood in the 1960s, Smidt received Academy Award nominations for his art direction on “Requiem for a Heavyweight”--starring Anthony Quinn, Jackie Gleason and Mickey Rooney--in 1962, and “A Thousand Clowns”--starring Jason Robards--in 1965.

He handled the look of “The Young Savages,” with Burt Lancaster, in 1961.

Smidt had previously worked in New York on Broadway and for NBC television, handling sets, lighting and costumes for the stage plays “Infidel Caesar” and “My Fiddle Has Three Strings” and for specials and dramas.

He earned Emmy nominations for three specials: “The Power and the Glory,” with Laurence Olivier; “Cyrano de Bergerac,” with Jose Ferrer; and the Sadler Wells Company’s “Sleeping Beauty.”

In later years, Smidt became a producer, creating with his wife, Renee Valente, the Hallmark Hall of Fame show “The Littlest Angel,” which appeared annually on television from 1969 through 1981.

An avid fisherman, environmentalist and conservationist, Smidt also wrote and produced several segments of ABC’s “American Sportsman.” He directed the documentary “Shattered--If Your Kid’s on Drugs” and an ecology program starring country singer Mel Tillis, “Global Re-Leaf.”

Smidt also wrote and illustrated a book, “Teach Your Dad How to Fish.”

Having dropped out of high school to join the Navy during World War II, Smidt later studied at the Ringling School of Art in Sarasota, Fla., and the Island City School of Art in Key West, Fla., where he became acquainted with Ernest Hemingway.

After studying art and painting murals at the University of Moralia in Mexico, he went to the New York area to paint sets at the Westport Playhouse in Connecticut. He joined NBC as a young vice president in 1951, and worked on converting the network from black and white to color.

Smidt is survived by his wife, four children and eight grandchildren.

The family has asked that memorial contributions be made to the Amber Lakes Wildlife Refuge, 297 Artists Ave., Englewood, FL 34223, or to the Englewood Animal Rescue Sanctuary, 840 3rd St., Englewood, FL 34223.