Ragnar Qvale, 86; Actor, Led Architectural Firm

Ragnar Qvale, a prominent Los Angeles architect who designed the original Sahara Hotel in Las Vegas and was known as a preservationist of architecturally significant buildings, has died. He was 86.

Qvale died Sept. 20 of a cerebral hemorrhage in his home in Dana Point, where he and his wife, Mollie, had lived the last three years.

Born in Norway, Qvale immigrated to Seattle with his family at 13. He studied architecture at the University of Washington, where he joined the ski team and competed in jumping, downhill and cross-country racing.

While working as a ski instructor in Sun Valley, Idaho, in late 1939, he taught skiing to movie mogul Darryl Zanuck, who brought Qvale to Los Angeles for a screen test and signed him as a $75-a-week contract player at 20th Century Fox.

Qvale landed his first role--as a Nazi officer in the war drama “Four Sons”--the same day that the German army entered his native Norway.

“I’m grateful for the opportunity,” he told United Press, “but they must think I’m a terrific actor to be able to play the part of a Nazi officer at this time.”

Qvale also appeared in the Sonja Henie picture “Sun Valley Serenade,” playing a small part and doing the stunt-skiing for Milton Berle. He had small parts in a few other films before World War II cut his fledgling acting career short.

After serving four years as a pilot, he returned to Los Angeles. Abandoning his acting career to pursue his first love, he established the architectural firm of Ragnar C. Qvale and Associates as well as Q.A. Architectural Arts, a firm that made watercolor renderings of buildings from blueprints.

Qvale’s projects also include Hughes Laboratories in Malibu, the rebuilt Wilshire Country Club and the Buckley School in Sherman Oaks.

Qvale’s interest in building preservation grew out of his first restoration project in the early 1970s: a ‘20s-era San Francisco building designed by acclaimed architect Bernhard Maybeck that had been bought by Qvale’s brother, Kjell, to house his British Motor Car Co.

Qvale went on to restore an English Tudor home that he and his wife purchased in Hancock Park and another old home in Fremont Place that Mary Pickford once lived in and where the Qvales lived for 24 years.

“It became a passion with him,” said Mollie Qvale.

Among the other buildings Qvale restored are the former Title Insurance & Trust Building on Spring Street in Los Angeles, which he and his brother had purchased, and the courthouse in St. Helena, Calif.

Qvale is survived by his wife; sons, Paul, John and Erik; daughter, Signe Kennedy; and four grandchildren.