The Art Directors Guild will be presenting Dean Tavoularis with an honorary lifetime achievement award at its 11th annual awards ceremony, Feb. 17 at the Beverly Hilton Hotel.  Yeah… that’s a bit away… but it gives us time to reflect on the sheer awesomeness of this guy’s work.

The man won the art direction Oscar for The Godfather, Part II (nice to have under your belt) and received production design nominations for Tucker: The Man and His Dream, Apocalypse Now (one of the all time best movies EVER), The Brink's Job and The Godfather, Part III.  And if that list isn’t impressive enough… keep in mind he also did The Godfather (the OG!), The Outsiders, Peggy Sue Got Married, Rising Sun and Bonnie and Clyde, just to name a few.

What can we say… the guy is stone cold groovy.  So groovy in fact, that he met his foxy (and 13 years younger) French wife, Aurore Clément, on the set of Apocalypse Now (although her part was edited out in the end, it didn't seem to put a damper on things) and they are still together. Ah… must have been the romantic smell of  napalm in the morning.