Bruce Chilton Lane
Bruce Chilton Lane passed away unexpectedly April 15, 2024 at his home in Goleta, California. He was 84.
Bruce was born in Los Angeles, California on December 26, 1939, to Ralph Edward Lane and Roberta Serrell Lane. The family lived in a beautiful home on King’s Road in West Hollywood. In youth and adolescence, Bruce showed promise in the arts as he gained proficiency on the violin and his emerging artistic talent was recognized in awards for his oil paintings.
A member of the inaugural class of the American Film Institute and a graduate of UCLA’s School of Theater, Film and Television, Bruce created a highly regarded film called UNC, which is still on the Best of UCLA student films circuit. Bruce also worked on several major feature films in Hollywood, creating special effects colorizing 1960s psychedelic music sequences. Bruce devoted his career to researching various film settings and filming techniques, exploring the intricacies of staging presentations using multiple combined technologies, including 3-D and, most recently, the newly developed “VR” virtual reality captured imagery. He was close to completing a film project, The Journal of Albion Moonlight, in collaboration with steadfast long-time friend Terry Forgette, that underwent many evolutions over fifty years.
Bruce was an associate of the late Kenneth Kendall, an artist who created many portraits of James Dean and others and collected oddities and memorabilia he left in Bruce’s care. Bruce was currently cataloguing and organizing the vast art collection of Mr. Kendall, who was widely known for his most eclectic taste and accumulation of rare movie memorabilia and the bizarre.
With a propensity for the unusual, Bruce possessed an insatiable curiosity which drove him to thoroughly immerse himself in researching one project until another avenue captured his imagination, which he would then incorporate within his greater artistic pursuit. Bruce was also an inventor, striving among other projects to perfect a more efficient solar cell through nanoparticle spray technology. To other projects he applied 3-D ground probing radar and other esoteric dimensional imagery. He loved classical music and theater and nature, particularly birds, with a special affinity for crows.
Over the years Bruce explored various media: pen and ink, oil and acrylics, filmic and ceramic. He had a keen eye and a beautiful brush stroke. He surrounded himself with books upon books: physics, chemistry, mathematics, (some dealing with creating images in the fourth dimension), modern and ancient artists, recording in various media, and numerous illustrated books on insects. In many ways he was a modern Leonardo da Vinci, who fascinated him, sharing with him a monkish devotion to all things scientific and artistic. Bruce was a kind and gentle soul whose main endeavor was the pursuit of knowledge.
Bruce is survived by two brothers, Robert (Mary) Lane of Oshkosh, Wisconsin and Howard (Tami) Lane of Las Vegas, Nevada; one sister, Sylvia Sage Lane, Hollywood, California; niece Shelby Lane (Catania) and nephew Michael (Stephanie) Lane. He was preceded in death by his parents, life-long friend James Watson, best friend in Santa Barbara Jean-Pierre Hébert, and soulmate Jeanne d’Andrea. Bruce lived a rich, full life and will be greatly missed. He was very devoted to family and friends, sometimes helping others at personal sacrifice.
Bruce attracted and maintained a constellation of friends, each of whom held a special relationship with him. Among those mourning Bruce are Terrance Forgette, Christalene Loren, Cindy Cronk Vukovic, Desy Safán-Gerard, Rob Qualls, Moira Hahn, Mark Hotchkiss, Catalina Castillo, Dan Argo, Karen Hinds, Kimberley Green, and Lisa Lunsford and Diana Funaro. Bruce touched many people’s lives. He valued each of you.
As Bruce would say, “Onwards, Upwards.”