Jim MEES

MEES, Jim The EMMY-award winning set decorator for Star Trek: The Next Generation, and more than another dozen hit television series, passed away on Friday, March 29th, Good Friday, at the age of 57, following a 12-month battle with pancreatic cancer. "Jim was an inspiration to everyone, handling this deadly disease with his trademark passion, good will and humor," said his life partner, Dr. Michael Smyth. "Typical of Jim, it was him who comforted the rest of us, showing us how to live and die with courage and grace." A native of New York, Mr. Mees relocated to Los Angeles in the 1970s, where he quickly won acclaim for his work as a designer and decorator on such hit television series as The Jeffersons, One Day at a Time, Who's the Boss?, Star Trek: Next Generation, Private Practice, and Bones. In all, he lent his talents to more than one-dozen shows, spanning a 35-year Hollywood career. For seventeen of those years, he created sets for three successive Star Trek series - The Next Generation, Voyager, and Enterprise - breakthrough work for which he received six EMMY Awards nominations. In 1990, he won the EMMY for Art Direction/Set Decoration for the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode, "Sins of the Father." Summarizing the challenges and exhilaration of designing for this landmark franchise, Mr. Mees commented in an interview on StarTrek.com: "Everything is a continual new creation." (For the full interview, see: http://www.sttrek.com/watch_video/jim-mees-interview-part-1). Along with his considerable television series credits, Mr. Mees also designed live shows for The Beach Boys; Earth, Wind, and Fire; Chicago; and Diana Ross; and the sets for the feature films Second Serve, starring Vanessa Redgrave, and, more recently, Maniac. His work on television commercials, furniture and fabric design, theme park installations, residential interiors, exterior landscapes, runway fashion, and multi-media special events is testimony to the breadth and depth of his creative reach. In the mid-1990s, Mr. Mees branched out from Los Angeles. He developed a design curriculum for the newly created Film School at Watkins Institute of Art in Nashville, TN, and became an adjunct instructor in set design and decoration, as well as an advisor to the Watkins Department of Interior Design. In 1996, he was installed as a member of the Watkins Board of Trustees. His work in Tennessee also included designing and producing The Swan Ball for the Cheekwood Museum and Botanical Gardens, and the opening ceremonies for The Nashville Symphony Hall and Opening Night Gala. Mr. Mees began his design career at the young age of twelve, when he became a protégé to the iconic textile designer Vera, helping to create the images that would characterize her scarves, sportswear, tableware, and linens. He went on to study at Carnegie-Mellon University in the School of Drama, where he was selected as a work-study student for George Abbot's final Broadway production Music Is at the Seattle Repertory Theater. He graduated in 1977 with University Honors. In 2008, Mr. Mees relocated his primary residence, along with his design studio, from Los Angeles to Selinsgrove, PA, where he lived with Michael Smyth and their two dogs, Connie and Waldo. Mr. Mees is survived by his partner, Michael; his mother, Helen Mees; his siblings, Sherene Williams, Kathy Gordon and Dan Mees; and friends and colleagues too numerous to name or count, but whom he held, along with his family, so dear in his heart. Funeral services will be held at Salem Lutheran Church, 899 Salem Road in Selinsgrove, PA on Monday, April 8th at 11 a.m. (570-374-8755). A reception at the church will follow. Donations may be made in his memory to Lambda Legal (lambdalegal.org), an organization whose mission is to achieve full recognition of the civil rights of LGBT individuals and those with HIV through impact litigation, education, and public policy work.