Dwight Franklin

Dwight Franklin (28 January 1888 in New York City – 19 January 1971 in Santa Monica, California) was an artist, taxidermist, naturalist, museum curator, and designer of costumes for Hollywood films.

Dwight Franklin began employment in 1906 as a taxidermist for the American Museum of Natural History. In 1910 he participated in a Museum-sponsored expedition to Mississippi's Moon Lake, part of the habitat of the American paddlefish.^[1] With John Treadwell Nichols and Henry Weed Fowler, he was a founder in 1915 of the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists. Franklin created many figurines^[2] and sculptures. He built historical dioramas for the American Museum of Natural History, the Brooklyn Children's Museum, the Newark Museum, and the Museum of the City of New York. In the early 1930s Franklin moved from New York City to Los Angeles to work as a costume designer designer for Hollywood films.^[3]

Married Mary C. McCall Jr. (b. NY 1904-d. Los Angeles CA 1986)novelist, screenwriter, Jan. 1928. divorced Feb. 1943 Married Eliza Moultrie Franklin (1901–1982).1947-his death

[4][5]

Selected publications

• "A Method of Preparing Fish for Museum and Exhibition Purposes". 1910.
• "Color Changes in Collared Lizards". Copeia. 1: 2–3. 1913.
• "Some Fish of the Middle West". Am. Mus. J. 14: 37. 1914.
• "Note on a Nesting Sunfish". Copeia. 11: 1. 1914.
• "Notes on Leopard Lizards". Copeia. 5: 1–2. 1914.
• "Comparative Numbers of Lizards and Snakes on Desert". Copeia. 12: 2. 1914.
• "Notes on a Fish Caught Three Times". Copeia. 22: 36. 1915.
• "Notes on Amblystoma Tinigrum at Flagstaff, Arizona". Copeia. 21: 30–31. 1915.
• "A Recent Development in Museum Groups". Proceedings of the American Association of Museums. 11: 110–112. 1916.

Selected filmography

• The Black Pirate (1926) ≤ref name IMDb≥
• Treasure Island (1934)^[6]
• The Plainsman (1936)^[6]
• The Buccaneer (1938)^[6]
• Reap the Wild Wind (1942) ref name IMDb≥
• The Adventures of Mark Twain (1944)^[6]
• Frenchman's Creek (1944)^[6]
• Sinbad the Sailor (1947)^[6]
• The Exile (1947)^[6]
• Tycoon (1947)^[6]
• Unconquered (1947)^[6]
• Samson and Delilah (1949)^[6]

References

1. Dean, Bashford (23 May 1914). "The Life Habits of Fishes: Exhibits in the American Museum". Scientific American. Supplement, Volume 77: 332–333. doi:10.1038/scientificamerican05231914-332supp.
2. Reniers, Percival (March 1920). "A New Art of the Theatre". Theatre Magazine. 31 (229): 176–177.
3. Dwight Franklin: The Greenwich Village Bookshop Door, hrc.utexas.edu
4. Dwight Franklin - Artist Bulletins, askart.com
5. Person Details for Eliza Moultrie Franklin, "California Death Index, 1940–1997"
6. Dwight Franklin, imdb.com