David Negron Sr., a conceptual painter, illustrator and storyboard artist with credits including Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark, Blade Runner and the Ace Ventura movies, has died. He was 85.
Negron died Oct. 12 of natural causes in his home in Long Beach, California, his family announced.
Negron worked on other films including Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979), Gremlins (1984), Ghostbusters (1984), The Jewel of the Nile (1985), Midnight Run (1988), Ghost (1990), Back to the Future Part III (1990), Last Action Hero (1993) and Out of Time (2003).
For Steven Spielberg, Negron helped the director visualize the iconic giant boulder chase scene in Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) and the dinosaur environments featured in Jurassic Park (1993). He also painted images for Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner (1982).
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Born on Dec. 24, 1935, in Del Rio, Texas, and raised in San Antonio, Negron attended Baylor University, Texas A&M and, after leaving Texas in 1965, the Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles.
He landed a job at 20th Century Fox as a conceptual painter and worked on Doctor Dolittle (1967), Hello, Dolly! (1969) and Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970).
Negron moved to Disney, where he illustrated for movies and created posters for such films as Kidnapped (1971) and Escape to Witch Mountain (1975). For WED Enterprises, the amusement park division, he created conceptual paintings for Disneyland and Disney World attractions like Space Mountain. He also painted the three-panel mural based on turn-of-the-century scenes that appear inside The Plaza Inn restaurant at Disneyland and Disneyland Paris.
He was a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Survivors include his children, Cynthia, Laura, David Jr., Joel and Lawrence; 18 grandchildren; and 21 great-grandchildren.
