Ellsworth Fredericks

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Ellsworth Fredericks (born June 2, 1904 in New York , United States , † August 16, 1993 in San Marcos , California ) was an American cameraman .

Life

Fredericks had received a photography education before he began his film career as a camera assistant in 1931. At first he worked for smaller studios, mostly on B-productions. Major companies such as Paramount Pictures later hired him .

Fredericks was late becoming chief cameraman. In this role, he photographed a number of standard Westerns in the 50s and 60s, but also conventional, but in some cases quite ambitious and expensive entertainment films such as William Wyler's Quaker drama Alluring Temptation . Immediately beforehand, Fredericks had shot a horror cult film with Don Siegel's Die Demonischen. In 1958 he was recognized for his photography to Sayonara for the Oscar nominated.

That Fredericks also mastered the unpretentious, semi-documentary black and white photography, he was able to prove in 1963 in the high-profile military drama Seven Days in May . Most recently, at the end of the 1960s, he was only behind the camera in weak A-films with old stars like Doris Day , Glenn Ford and Elvis Presley , who had long since passed their zenith. Despite all his professionalism, Fredericks never achieved the level of recognition of numerous camera colleagues of his generation in Hollywood .

Filmography (selection)

literature

  • Kay Less : The film's great personal dictionary . The actors, directors, cameramen, producers, composers, screenwriters, film architects, outfitters, costume designers, editors, sound engineers, make-up artists and special effects designers of the 20th century. Volume 3: F - H. Barry Fitzgerald - Ernst Hofbauer. Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-89602-340-3 , p. 97.

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