Celebrity Biographies
Ian Whittaker
“Alien, the eighth passenger” would not have been the same without its suggestive sets of the narrow corridors of the Nostromo ship. It is not the only legendary title that the British Ian Whittaker worked on in four decades of activity. This great professional died on October 16, 2022, at the age of 94, as a result of prostate cancer.
Born in London on 13 July 1928, Ian Whittaker was the son of Hugh, a stage manager and later personal assistant to actor George Arliss , and Hettie, a musical theater performer. He studied acting at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art with Roger Moore. Later, he appeared with Laurence Olivier and Ralph Richardson in a celebrated 1945 stage production of “Oedipus Rex.”
After military service, he acted for director Lewis Gilbert in the films Cosh Boy (1953), The Sea Shall Not Have Them (1954), Reach for the Sky (1956), and Sink the Bismarck! (1960). However, he was not quite successful, so he looked for a job in the art department, and ended up creating sets for titles such as The Countess from Hong Kong , by Charles Chaplin .
For the aforementioned Ridley Scott sci-fi horror film , he used bits of old washing machines and spray-painted them white for the interior of the Nostromo spaceship. In addition to being remembered for Alien, the eighth passenger , Ian Whittaker stood out in period cinema, with titles such as Sense and Sensibility , What Remains of the Day , or Return to Howards End , for which he won the Oscar.
He never gave up his career as an actor, with small roles in fifty titles, including The Resurrection of Frankenstein . In 2009, Ian Whittaker decided to retire from cinema , following Julian Fellowes ‘ fantasy drama From One Age to Another .