For many years Ross MacDonald has been a contributor to periodicals like Vanity Fair, The New York Times, The New Yorker, Newsweek, Time, and Rolling Stone, creating illustrations and writing humor pieces.

He also authored and illustrated 4 children’s books, as well as the adult humor books In and Out with Dick and Jane, (with co-author James Victore) and What Would Jesus Craft?.

Yet all the while he has led a secret double life designing and fabricating props for over 40 movies and television series. He has made everything from the book Bradley Cooper’s character throws out the window in Silver Linings Playbook, to the titular Book of Secrets for the second National Treasure movie; Jennifer Lawrence’s mop patents for Joy; baby’s favorite book in Baby’s Day Out; Nucky Thompson’s passport and Arnold Rothstein’s calling card for Boardwalk Empire; the morgue toe-tags in The Knick; the Pawnee town charter for Parks and Recreation; the Red Apple Tobacco tin in Tarantino’s Hateful Eight; Versace’s book in the latest season of American Crime Story and thousands of other props.

Born and raised in the backwoods of Canada, he lived for many years in New York City before finally washing up on the bucolic shores of Connecticut.

photos: Deborah Feingold