ARCHITECTS

(March 14, 1918 – 1977)

Born on March 14, 1918 in Chicago. Studied at the University of Minnesota and University of Southern California. During World War II he was in the Army’s structural engineering division before becoming senior set designer at MGM studios from 1943-1945.

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He married actress Diana Lynn in 1948, divorced in 1954. From 1950-1952 Lindsay partnered with William Krisel & Dan Palmer (Palmer, Krisel & Lindsay).  In an interview, Krisel explained that Lindsay brought in numerous clients through his Hollywood connections, but never signed them up for high enough fees for the firm to make a profit, so they let him go. Another motivation for the Lindsay partnership was mentioned by Krisel: “John had married Diana and I was a bachelor and he used to fix me up with a lot of movie starlets...”

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Lindsay went on to establish his Los Angeles architectural practice, John C. Lindsay & Associates. The Braemar Corporation commissioned him to design several cooperative communities in southern California including Desert Braemar (1957) in Rancho Mirage, the largest and one of the first co-ops in the desert. Also designed by Lindsay was the Sunset Braemar, a modernist high-rise that today is the Mondrian Hotel on the Sunset Strip. One of his most famous residences was a house.

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Lindsay married famous television actress June Lockhart (Lassie, Lost In Space) in 1959; they divorced in 1970. Ever the self-promoter, in 1964, Lindsay was admonished by the AIA for appearing in national print advertisements for Chesterfield cigarettes and Lord Calvert whisky (see image at left), the latter pictured Lindsay holding a glass of whisky, with architectural models in the background.  The ad proclaimed, “Mr. John C. Lindsay, AIA, one of America’s outstanding architects and executive head of John C. Lindsay and Associates, Bel Air, California, designers of office buildings, apartments houses, and private homes.”  Another newspaper article in 1967 praised his high fashion jewelry designs, sold on the commercial market, while mentioning his designs for the Mount Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles (later Cedars Sinai) and the Hughes missile plant in Tucson.

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John Lindsay died in Los Angeles in 1977, at the age of 59.