Conceptual Designer Producer Painter and Paleontologist William Stout Talks Creative Imagination at the Old Mill in San Marino

It was a clear crisp and breezy day.

A local native put it best when she said, “South Pasadena is like driving through a Norman Rockwell painting.” It really was a “take your breath away, kind of experience.”

 You would have had to been there to feel the full effect.

If you ever saw, “Tarzan of the Apes” that was the infamous, William Stout our guest for the day. Have you ever noticed how some people leave their presence, after meeting them? This is William and like most Williams, he held an air of mystery. A distinguished and talented gentle man, full of life, art, and wonderment, Stout seemed much too young to have done so many things. Our interview took place at the Old Mill, in San Marino California. The Spanish call it, “El Molino Viejo.” It is both a historical and architectural landmark. Completed in 1816, the Mill has stood tall since. A former grist Mill it was formerly in the San Rafael Hills, now San Marino. Father Jose Maria de Zalvidea from the Mission San Gabriel Archangel built it. The California Art Club’s, Director of Community Relations, “Beverly Chang” had suggested we use the Old Mill for this particular interview, because of its obvious ambience. It was perfect. In addition, in April of 1993, Stout saw the release of William Stout’s Lost Worlds. The first of three sets of trading cards by Comic Images. As far as statistics go, he has sold over 20 million trading cards. Jurassic Park’s writer, Michael Crichton acknowledged Stout as his inspiration. 1993 would also be the year that the California Art Club invited Stout to become a member of their executive board. He is presently serving as a member of their Advisory Board and in 1997 he was honored as the Club’s Signature Member.

 As we sat down inside the Mill’s small yet quaint gallery, there was the smell of golden dandelions, richly tainted with a whiff of a nearby Orange tree. For an extra sensual experience, the Old Mill’s creek flowed ever so lovely, behind the Spanish styled, green vine covered bricked building. The room held an aura of fanciful enchantment. South Pasadena based, the 1906 California Art Club, the Mill’s gallery owner, was initially, an all males paint group calling themselves, ‘The Painters Club.”. The club sought to bring artists together and present artwork for sale through exhibitions.  In order to join, the club only allowed men who worked in oil, watercolor, and pastel. A few years later, the club disbanded. Some of the original members re-grouped, naming themselves, the “California Art Club,” and thus in late March of 1909, the club began. Membership guidelines flexed to include women, sculptors, and artists who lived outside the State. Herein lay the gallery a perfect setting to talk about William’s first film, Buck Rogers, his 30 plus feature films and how he turned the green bug, named “Edgar”, “Men In Black” into an ugly. Bug.

A master in prehistoric research, Stout, ahead of himself on the subject, presented a 1977, one-man show called, “The Pre-historic World of William Stout.” Did you know that William was the first of American contributors to “Heavy Metal Magazine”? A man who looked so gentle with the warmest heart talked about his path to success. William’s bio says that he was born in Salt Lake City on the way to LA. The story went like this, “my mom and dad were 21 and 18. My dad was visiting his family in Idaho. Mom went into labor and so we temporarily had to stay in Salt Lake City, where I was born. From there we moved to Los Angeles.”  Stout is a famous behind the scenes production designer becoming the youngest ever in the entertainment industry. For those of you who do not know, the production designer is in charge of everything on the set except the actors and performances. He is in charge of everything you see on the screen. All of the special effects, the set decorations and the costumes that you see in the production. William has at least 450 people on a set. Can you imagine having to account for that many people all at once?

Let’s not forget  the fact that the man, can say he worked, “First Blood”, “Invaders From Mars”, “Return of the Living Dead”, and the computer animated feature, “Dinosaur”, a year 2000, release.

If you know your film, then you can relate when we say, Pan’s Labyrinth” was more than horror it was exquisite horror. Stephen King’s, the “Mist” was also the magic of William Stout, that’s “Sir William” to you. We asked William how he was able to make, “Men in Blacks,” “Edgar,” such a mean looking bug.

Stout told the story of how the first bug that he presented to Stephen Spielberg, was literally, squashed because it was not mean enough. When the designer genius came back from a second try the rest is shall we say, a “Men in Black,” thang. And how in the world does a tour get designed  in particular, “ZZ Top’s”, “Recycler” tour?  ZZ had a design in mind for how they wanted their backdrop and set to look. Stout hit right on with his thoughts  on Recycler’s concept and that is how everyone saw the designs presentation.  He is single handedly responsible for all of the theme park additions , to Walt Disney World, Tokyo Disney Land, Euro Disney Land, Walt Disney World, and San Diego Disney World.  This he did while working for Walt Disney Imagineering as a conceptual designer and producer.

I marveled at how a designer could make production seem so easy.
As a result, of William Stout’s paleontological reconstructive work, 11 of his paintings were included as a traveling exhibition of, “Dinosaurs Past and Present”, his depiction of the history of paleoart.

The tour would take six years including making its way to the “British Museum” and the “American Museum of Natural History,” in addition to the “Royal Ontario Museum.” Stout’s exhibition drew over 2,000,000 visitors while at the Smithsonian. In 1981, scientists began to research “Dinosaurs”, Stout said,” I started to look into the subject as well and found out that they had color corrective vision, took care of their young and had feathers .. I thought to put together a book, a comprehensive guide for children and the public about facts on Dinosaurs. It was truly a Renaissance period at that time. Bantam Books published my book, THE DINOSAURS-A Fantastic New View of a Lost Era ( THE NEW DINOSAURS), It became a (1984 Children’s Choice Award winner and the basis for the Land Before Time animated feature).The kids in the neighborhood started calling me “Dinosaur Man”. Stout’s impressive body of written- works include, Ray Bradbury’s Dinosaur Tales and The Little Blue Brontosaurus.

Stout’s plans include completing two more books on the Blues and are already in motion. His first one on “Legends of the Blues” is a cool looking hip adaptation of 100 portraits of Stout’s favorite blues artists before the 1930’s. “I wrote a one page bio on all of the Chess guys, and produced the CD in the book”, he says while projecting the face of an excited teenager. “I am obsessed with songwriters and am working on books about the “British Blues” and the “Modern British Blues.” Both will focus on artist like Jack White and Jimi Hendrix.” Stout said it took me some time to find out that the British were just feeding our own Blues back to us. Did you know that Bessie Smith was amongst the first of famous Blues Stars that were all women?

Out of all of his favorite things to do, William said he loves paleontology. He loves to paint, accurate reconstructions of prehistoric life murals for natural history museums. Presently, his murals are on display at Houston Museum of Natural Science, Walt Disney’s Animal Kingdom, and the Orton Geological Museum. The Museum Of the Rockies and the North Carolina Museum of Natural Science. As we started to wrap up the interview, Stout shared one more thing, which was the story of how he met a fellow member of the Art Club, Peter Adam. Peter had painted in the Himalayas, and traveled to Antarctica. When Stout asked him how to paint in the cold, Adams had this to say, “use pastels because they don’t freeze, and mix watercolor and brushes in a small bottle of travel case size Vodka. It will stay warm and so will you.”

Stout took a voyage to Antarctica and Patagonia in January of 1989. The profundity of his experience there would change his life and compel him to do a 45 painting, one-man show, “Dinosaurs, Penguins and Whales The Wildlife of Antarctica”, the paint didn’t freeze and neither did he.

You can find out more about the large and in development body of works of William Stout and the California Art Club at www.williamstout.com and www.CALIFORNIAARTCLUB.ORG,