The Bold and the Beautiful
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Seven Daytime Emmy winner and production designer passes on.

Soaps.com is sad to report the death of production designer Sy Tomashoff. Tomashoff died Sunday at his Los Feliz home in Los Angeles. He was 96. The news was reported by his daughter Ivy to The Hollywood Reporter.

Tomashoff was born on September 11, 1922 in New York City. He graduated from Curtis High School and went on to New York’s City College before serving in World War II. He served as a rifleman under General George S. Patton and was awarded the Combat Infantryman Badge and a Bronze Star for valor. He later received a bachelor’s degree in architecture from Carnegie Tech in 1950.

Tomashoff was a seven Daytime Emmy winner for production design. His first job was on CBS’ The Edge of the Night in 1956. He went on to work as an art director for several episodes of the television shows East Side/West Side, The David Susskind Show and For the People. However, he is best known for creating the creepy atmosphere of the Collins family manor and other sets on ABC’s Dark Shadows. The soap, which ran from June 1966 through April 1971, followed the Collins family of Collinsport, Maine and starred Jonathan Frid as vampire Barnabas Collins. The campy gothic soap also featured ghosts, werewolves and witches. Tomashoff also served as an associate producer on the show.

After Dark Shadows he won his first Daytime Emmy for design achievement for a drama due to his work on the ABC series Ryan’s Hope in 1981. He went on to work on NBC’s Santa Barbara and CBS’ Capitol, but in 1987 partnered with Bill Bell in launching CBS’ The Bold and the Beautiful, where he spent 13 years as production designer and art director. On the soap opera he had a hand in designing the iconic Forrester mansion sets. There he won five more Daytime Emmys before he retired in 2000.

Tomashoff is survived by his wife Naomi, their daughters Ivy and Liz, his grandchildren Samuel and Ahleea, his sister Judith, and his nieces Maud and Maggie, and nephew Jeremy. Soaps.com sends our condolences to his family and friends. Please look back on others lost in the soap opera industry we’ve lost in 2019.