Biography for
Saul Bass More at IMDbPro »

Date of Birth

8 May 1920, New York City, New York, USA

Date of Death

25 April 1996, Los Angeles, California, USA (non-Hodgkin's lymphoma)

Mini Biography

Saul Bass was born in New York City in 1920. He is known as one of the best ever graphic designers for film, as he has created the credits and title sequences of over 60 films, he has often worked with directors Martin Scorsese, and especially Alfred Hitchcock on his very famous film Psycho, of which he designed the titles. His skills have intrigued audience all over as film critic say that you could tell what was going to happen in a film for which Saul designed the titles. He has had a long lasting and successful career, helping out with visual concepts, storyboards but most importantly the titles for the bigger cinematic hits of the 20th century. Saul died in 1996.

IMDb Mini Biography By: Francesco Bori

Spouse

Elaine Bass

(1961 - 25 April 1996) (his death) 2 children

Trade Mark

Avant-garde title sequences and symbolic posters.

Trivia

Designed the title sequence in Psycho (1960) and one of the scenes where Arbogast climbs the stairs to his doom. He also drew up storyboards for the shower scene upon the specific instructions of Hitchcock. However, in interviews with Truffaut, Hitchcock states that he didn't use these because they "weren't right".

In the opening credits to Cape Fear (1991), Bass superimposed shots from the title sequence he did for John Frankenheimer's Seconds (1966).

It has been said that once you see the opening titles to a film that Saul Bass has done, you can walk out of the theatre because you know exactly what the film's about: he has shown you the entire thing in the first minute or so.

Biography in: "American National Biography". Supplement 1, pp. 32-33. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.