David Ffolkes, set and costume designer for motion pictures and theater, was born at Hagley Grange, West Hagley, England on October 12, 1912. His father, H. E. Folkes (David Ffolkes legally changed the spelling of his surname), was a Stourbridge architect and Ffolkes himself attended the Birmingham School of Architecture before he embarked on his theatrical career.
He began his work in the theater in 1934 when he designed the sets and costumes for The Writing on the Wall and Sunshine Sisters. Such was his growing reputation that Ffolkes was engaged to prepare sets and costumes for ten plays during the 1934-35 season of the Old Vic. Leading actor Maurice Evans was so impressed with Ffolkes' work that he invited him to go to America. There Ffolkes debuted on Broadway by preparing the sets and costumes for Richard II. His success resulted in his working on several other productions until the outbreak of World War II.
In 1939 Ffolkes enlisted in the Royal Artillery where he rose to the rank of captain. He spent the last 3 1/2 years of his service as a Japanese prisoner-of-war in Siam where he worked on the “Railway of Death” whose construction was dramatized in the motion picture Bridge on the River Kwai.
After the war, Ffolkes resumed his theatrical career and designed for productions such as The Thracian Horses, The Day After Tomorrow, Henry VIII, Brigadoon, and Man and Superman. He won the Antoinette Perry Award for his work on Henry VIII. In 1951 Ffolkes designed for both the theatrical and motion picture musical productions of Where's Charley?, which were based on the play Charley's Aunt. In addition he prepared the costumes for the New York City Ballet's production of Scotch Symphony. The following year Ffolkes began a lecture tour and wrote several articles for Theatre Arts Magazine. In 1954 he was appointed a professor of Theatre Arts at Boston University. There he met Mary Williams, a student whom he later married. They collaborated on the designs for his first film, Island in the Sun, and occasionally worked together on other productions.
In 1955 Ffolkes designed the costumes for Robert Rossen's epic film Alexander the Great which starred Richard Burton. Other motion pictures on which he worked include Seven Thieves, Journey to the Center of the Earth, Nine Hours to Rama, Heaven's Above, Kaleidoscope, Darling, and You Only Live Twice.
Ffolkes died of a heart attack in the fall of 1966. This marked the end of one of the entertainment industry's more creative and prolific designers.
