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Biography:
Thomas A. Walsh, Production Designer was born into a Hollywood show business family. His father Arthur Walsh was a contract actor and jitterbug champion at MGM Studios during its golden period in the 1940s. He went on to have a successful solo career as a nightclub comedian, combining music, dance, magic, and gag-comedy, performing continuously in Las Vegas, Lake Tahoe, Reno, and Honolulu. It was through exposure to his father's world of live performance that Thomas began his lifelong journey in the filmed and performing arts.
Thomas began his career as an apprentice prop-maker and scenic artist working at many of Hollywood's premier theatrical, TV, and film studios. He went on to receive his bachelor of fine arts degree in theatre and design technologies from California Institute of the Arts. The focus of his past and on-going design work combines many different narrative design disciplines including feature films, IMAX, episodic series, documentaries, Broadway and regional theatre. Having been a mentor to many young designers, he has in more recent years renewed his interests for re-imagining training for the advanced science and applied practices of interdisciplinary narrative design media education. Most recently he completed an intensive review of the American Film Institute's Conservatory Production Design Program, which is the first and most advanced conservatory design program of its kind in the world.
Having been nominated many times, Thomas is the winner of the Television Academy's Emmy Award for his designs for CBS-TV's critically acclaimed series Buddy Faro. He is a winner of the Art Directors Guild Excellence in Production Design Award for the hit ABC-TV series Desperate Housewives. His work on In Search of Dr. Seuss garnered another Emmy Award nomination as well. He also designed the much-acclaimed documentary series MGM: When the Lion Roars, which won an Emmy Award for best informational special. A leader in designing for IMAX, one of his films, The Living Sea, was honored with an Academy Award nomination and another, The Discovers, was the signature film for the Spanish Pavilion at their World Expo in Sevilla.
Thomas is the originating production designer of ABC-TV's hit series Desperate Housewives for which he designed the pilot and 84 episodes. More recently he designed the popular USA/Universal cable series In Plain Sight and he has just completed season two of Lifetime Channel's most popular series, The Client List.
On Broadway Thomas designed the Tony Award winning production of Children of a Lesser God and the critically acclaimed production of Zoot Suit. He was associated with three other Tony Award wins for best production for I'm Not Rappaport, The Real Thing, and My One and Only; all realized during his service and apprenticeship to his mentor, the master stage and film designer Tony Walton. Thomas is a founding co-chair of the Art Directors Guild Archives and Research Library as well as its newly established Production Apprenticeship Program and its Art Directors Film Society. He served as President of the Art Directors Guild (ADG) from 2003 to 2013. The ADG represents 2100 national and international practitioners active in production design, art direction, illustration, matte painting, set design, model making, scenic painting, title and graphic arts for the motion picture, TV, exhibition, and themed entertainment industries. He has been a member of United Scenic Artists (USA) in New York since 1979. Other professional affiliations include membership in the Designers Branch of The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) The Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (ATAS) and a founding member of the Los Angeles branch of the Irish Film and Television Academy (IFTA). He is also a founding member of 5D: The Future of Immersive Design. He serves on the advisory board of Sony's Digital Motion Picture Center (DMPC) as well as being an advisor to the Institute of Screen Industries Research (ISIR). Thomas is the recipient of honorary professorships from the University of Nottingham United Kingdom-China-Malaysia, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China and East China Normal University, China. He continues to lecture and participate in portfolio reviews and guest residencies at colleges and universities both nationally and internationally.
Thomas is married to film, opera and theatre costume designer, Merrily Murray-Walsh, and they reside in Los Angeles, California and Santa FE, New Mexico.
