Pato Guzman

Pato Guzman , generally credited as "Pato Guzman", was Star Treks very first art director, when he was assigned by his employer Desilu Studios to Star Treks very first production, the pilot , in .
For "The Cage", Guzman was officially credited as "production designer", then a far more coveted title, but this was effectively an illegal credit, as he had at the time only recently become an officially union designated art director. Carrying the title had to be approved by the powerful labor union, which it had not, and would have made him the boss of his actual boss, Art Director Rolland M. Brooks, the senior staffer in Desilu's art department at the time. It is conceivable that Guzman was given the title by the studio for his personal relationship with the former Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz couple. But since the pilot was not aired, it never had been an issue and when "The Cage" was finally released to the general public on VHS in 1986, Guzman went uncredited. His subordinate and later successor on the regular run of , Matt Jefferies, went through something similar, but unlike Guzman, was brought to heel by the union. 
As Star Treks art director, Guzman was tasked with creating the look of the futuristic setting of Star Trek from scratch, which he did in a series of color paintings. With a lot of input from Gene Roddenberry and several outside advisors, Guzman conceptualized the interior sets for "The Cage", and also did preliminary work on the 's exterior and bridge. The finalization of the designs for the latter two were subsequently largely assigned to Guzman's assistant, Matt Jefferies, a 'regular' set designer at that time. A few of Guzman's sketches were reproduced in The Art of Star Trek in .
Homesick, Guzman left the series around to return to his native Chile for a year, before the first pilot began filming. He was replaced by Art Director Franz Bachelin, followed by Brooks himself, when Bachelin left as well after "The Cage", and ultimately by Jefferies during the production run of the regular series. (The Making of Star Trek, p. 101)
==Career outside Star Trek==
Before working on Star Trek, Guzman, a close personal friend of Desi Arnaz, was set designer on Desilu's I Love Lucy.
After returning to the United States, Guzman worked on the Paramount Pictures film The President's Analyst. This was followed by (1968), which marked the film debut of Leigh Taylor-Young. A later notable film Guzman designed was (1979, featuring Ed Begley, Jr., Rosana DeSoto, and Richard Libertini).
Guzman worked primarily with director . Among the Mazursky films on which Guzman worked were Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (1969, featuring Celeste Yarnall), (1970), An Unmarried Woman (1978, featuring Vincent Schiavelli), (1982, featuring Jerry Hardin), (1984, starring Robin Williams), Down and Out in Beverly Hills (1986, featuring Darryl Henriques and Irene Tsu), and Scenes from a Mall (1991). He even became a co-producer on some of Mazursky's films.
Pato Guzman died in Santiago, Chile, in 1991 following a brief illness. He was 57 years old.
== Further reading ==
* The Making of Star Trek, 1968
* Star Trek: The Original Series Sketchbook, 1997
* The Art of Star Trek, 1997
== External links ==
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Category:Art directors
es:Pato Guzman