Chip Dox, the two-time Daytime Emmy-winning production designer and art director who spent nearly three decades on soap operas including Days of Our Lives and General Hospital, has died. He was 80.
Dox died Aug. 15 at Providence Saint Joseph Medical Center in Burbank, a spokesperson for General Hospital told The Hollywood Reporter.
Dox also designed touring shows for such acts as Elton John, The Beach Boys, Chicago, Jackson Browne and Earth, Wind & Fire and worked with Tracey Ullman on her Fox sitcom Tracey Takes On, on the 1998-2000 Lifetime comedy Oh Baby and on the Telemundo sitcoms Viva Vegas and Los Beltrán.
Dox spent 17 years with NBC’s Days of Our Lives and received his first Emmy in 1997. He then moved to ABC and worked on General Hospital, the spinoff Port Charles and the primetime soap Nightshift, collecting another Emmy in 2011 for G.H. (amid seven nominations) before he retired in 2015.
Dox not only designed elaborate home interiors and hundreds of sets, he also created boat and train wrecks, fires, earthquakes and even a demonic possession, all while sticking to a shrinking daytime soap opera budget.
Charles Dox was born on March 14, 1943. After getting experience in local theater, he attended Carnegie Institute of Technology, served two years in the U.S. Army and returned to his alma mater to teach.
He came to Los Angeles to pursue a career in the entertainment industry despite receiving a rejection letter in 1970 from one studio executive who told him, “Frankly, I think at this time, anyone’s chances of making a living in the film industry are terrible.”
After he made it in show business, Dox, a longtime resident of La Cañada, California, volunteered to work on Broadway charity events and prepared brown bag lunches on Sundays for the homeless as part of a Hang Out Do Good initiative.
Survivors include his wife of 29 years, former Days of Our Lives producer and production manager Jeanne Haney (they worked on that show together for a decade); daughters Morgan, Katie and Hayley; stepdaughter Megan; and grandchildren Rae, Kiddo, Henry and Charlie.
In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to the World Central Kitchen.
