List of all people nominated for Oscar

His real name was Theodor Friedrich Emil Janenz, and in the early 1900s, he was already working in the theater under Max Reinhardt's company. Important movies where he defined himself as a convincing actor were Passion (1919) and Quo Vadis? (1924), followed by The Last Laugh (1924) (aka The Last Laugh) in 1924 and Variety (1925) (aka Variety) in 1925. In 1928, he became the first male leading actor to receive the academy award for The Last Command (1928) directed by Josef von Sternberg. In 1929, Stenberg directed him in his world famous movie The Blue Angel (1930) (aka The Blue Angel) co-starring the young Marlene Dietrich (her first role). Later on, he concentrated on theater and dedicated his acting skills to the Nazi regime and also took part in the realization of Ohm Krüger (1941) in 1941, an expensive anti-British film production. When the Second World War ended, the US government cleaned his image, and he converted to Catholicism. He played in a few more German movies, but his career never recaptured its brilliance.

Richard Barthelmess was born into a theatrical family in which his mother was an actress. While attending Trinity College in Connecticut, he began appearing in stage productions. While on vacation in 1916, a friend of his mother, actress Alla Nazimova, offered him a part in War Brides (1916), and Richard never returned to college. He appeared in a number of films before signing a contract with D.W. Griffith in 1919. Griffith put Richard into Broken Blossoms (1919) with Lillian Gish which made him a star. He had an uncanny ability to become the characters he played. The next year, he was again teamed with Lillian in Way Down East (1920). This film would become the standard for many movies in the future. Best remembered is the river scene in which Richard jumps over the ice floes in search of Lillian as she heads towards the falls. He formed Inspiration Pictures to make Tol'able David (1921) and gave one of his best performances as a lad who saves the U.S. mail from the outlaws. He remained popular throughout the twenties and became one of the biggest stars at First National Pictures. He received Academy Award nominations for The Patent Leather Kid (1927) and The Noose (1928). Sound was not a medium that would embrace Richard. He did make a number of talkies in the first few years of sound, but his acting technique was not well suited for sound and the parts began to get smaller. With his career over by the mid-30s, but he came back with a fine performance in Howard Hawks's Only Angels Have Wings (1939). Richard joined the Navy Reserve in 1942, and when the war ended he retired to Long Island and lived off his real estate investments.

Janet Gaynor was born Laura Gainor on October 6, 1906, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. As a child, she & her parents moved to San Francisco, California, where she graduated from high school in 1923. She then moved to Los Angeles where she enrolled in a secretarial school. She got a job at a shoe store for the princely sum of $18 per week. However, since L.A. was the land of stars and studios, she wanted to try her hand at acting. She managed to land unbilled bit parts in several feature films and comedy shorts. She bided her time, believing "Good things come to those who wait." She didn't have to wait too long, either. In 1926, at the age of 20, she turned in a superb performance as Anna Burger in The Johnstown Flood (1926). The Hollywood moguls knew they had a top star on their hands and cast her in several other leading roles that year, including The Shamrock Handicap (1926), The Blue Eagle (1926), The Midnight Kiss (1926) and The Return of Peter Grimm (1926). The next year she turned in acclaimed performances in two classic films, 7th Heaven (1927) and Sunrise (1927). Based on the strength of those two films plus Street Angel (1928), Janet received the very first Academy Award for best actress. This was the first and only time an actress won the Oscar for multiple roles. When "talkies" replaced silent films, Janet was one of the few who made a successful transition, not only because of her great acting ability but for her charming voice as well. Without a doubt, Janet had already lived a true rags-to-riches story. Throughout the mid-1930s she was the top drawing star at theaters. She turned in grand performances in several otherwise undistinguished films.

Then came A Star Is Born (1937). She was very convincing as Vicki Lester (aka Esther Blodgett), struggling actress trying for the big time. Told by the receptionist at Central casting "You know what your chances are? One in a hundred thousand," Esther/Vicki replies, "But maybe--I'm that one." For her outstanding performance she was nominated for another Oscar, but lost to Luise Rainer's performance in The Good Earth (1937), her second in as many tries. After appearing in The Young in Heart (1938), Janet didn't appear in another film until 1957's Bernardine (1957). Her last performance was in a Broadway version of Harold and Maude. Although the play was a flop, Janet's performance salvaged it to any degree - she still had what it took to entertain the public. On September 14, 1984, Janet passed away from pneumonia in Palm Springs, California, at the age of 77.

This knowing, plump-framed, strong-willed actress went on to play the gamut of emotions, from downtrodden, drunken ex-stars to self-controlled dowager empresses, in both silent pictures and early talkies. Grandly supporting the huge stars of her day (including Rudolph Valentino and Will Rogers), she actually started out as a celebrated singer from the vaudeville and Broadway stages; films came much later. While she wasn't as extensively captured on celluloid as, say, a Jane Darwell and is less remembered these days, Louise Dresser nevertheless created a daunting gallery of character matrons in her time and earned the respect of Hollywood.

The Hoosier-born and -bred Dresser was born Lulu Josephine Kerlin in Evansville, Indiana, on October 5, 1878, and raised there as the daughter of William and Ida Kerlin, he being a train engineer. She sang as a child and grew up as part of various choirs and shows in town. The family moved to Columbus, Ohio, when she reached her teens (he was killed in a railroad accident not long after their move). With a burning desire to perform professionally, the pretty 16-year-old ran away from home, abandoned her schooling and set her heart on making a career for herself in entertainment. She actively pursued singing roles that could benefit her contralto voice in stock, burlesque and vaudeville. She eventually changed her stage name to Louise Kerlin. During this time she became the lovely singing protégé of Tin Pan Alley composer Paul Dresser (né Paul Dreiser). Known at the time for such songs as "On the Banks of the Wabash" and "Far Away", it was Dresser, the brother of novelist Theodore Dreiser, who changed Louise's marquee name to Louise Dresser, and it was Louise who introduced Paul's biggest song hit to American ears, "My Gal Sal". Her affiliation with Paul helped earn her the billing "The Girl from the Wabash."

While on the vaudeville circuit Louise met and married Jack Norworth, a performing monologist, best known in later years for providing the lyrics to such old-time classics as "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" and "Shine On, Harvest Moon." She made her Broadway debut in "About Town" in 1906, which starred her husband, who also provided the songs. By the time Louise settled into the Broadway scene, however, the couple had divorced (after eight years). Noted for her charm and elegance, Louise specialized in light operettas and musical comedy, and year after year increased her marquee value with such New York musical shows as "The Girls of Gottenberg" (1908), "The Candy Shop" (1909), "A Matinee Idol" (1910), and "From Broadway to Paris" (1912).

Louise met Broadway singing star Jack Gardner (1873-1950) along the way. They married in 1908, a year after her divorce from Norworth. The couple went on to headline together in vaudeville but, interestingly, never managed to appear together on the Great White Way. Into the next decade she graced the New York stage with such singing vehicles as George M. Cohan's "Hello, Broadway!" (1914), and in two of Jerome Kern's: "Have a Heart" (1917) and "Rock-a-Bye, Baby" (1918).

Louise and husband Gardner decided to make a daring pitch for film work by moving to California in 1920. She debuted at age 44 with the film The Glory of Clementina (1922); her actor/singer husband, who appeared in the pictures Hollywood (1923) and Bluff (1924), actually found more success as a Fox Films executive. Forsaking her musical career, she now served as a reliable character actress in silents, making indelible impressions as the title character in The Goose Woman (1925) and as Catherine the Great in the Rudolph Valentino classic The Eagle (1925).

Louise, Janet Gaynor and Gloria Swanson were nominated for the very first "Best Actress" Oscar award, Louise for her strong, touching portrayal of a Hungarian immigrant in A Ship Comes In (1928) opposite Joseph Schildkraut. It was Gaynor, however, who earned the distinction of holding up the first trophy (for her work in three roles) while Swanson and Dresser received "Citations of Merit". Other famous ladies of history Louise addressed in films would include Calamity Jane in Caught (1931) and Empress Elizabeth in The Scarlet Empress (1934).

In the early 1930s the actress made a rare return to the stage with the play "A Plain Man and His Wife" in Pasadena, CA. Quite settled by this time in films, she became a familiar presence opposite homespun comedian Will Rogers in such unassuming Rogers vehicles as Lightnin' (1930), State Fair (1933), Doctor Bull (1933), David Harum (1934) and The County Chairman (1935). Rogers' tragic death in a plane accident ended a very warm and lucrative association she had with the beloved humorist. The devastated Dresser made only one film after that, the Claudette Colbert / Fred MacMurray drama Maid of Salem (1937), which recalled the Salem witch trials of the late 1600s.

Louise and husband Gardner retired to their home in Glendale, CA, where she primarily tended to her favorite pastime (gardening), along with taking part in numerous charitable affairs, notably for the Motion Picture Country Home and Hospital. Her husband died in 1950 and she followed suit a decade and a half later following surgery for an intestinal blockage on April 24, 1965, in Woodland Hills, CA. She was interred at Forest Lawn Cemetary in Glendale.

Gloria Swanson was born Gloria May Josephine Svensson in Chicago, Illinois. She was destined to be perhaps one of the biggest stars of the silent movie era. Her personality and antics in private definitely made her a favorite with America's movie-going public. Gloria certainly didn't intend on going into show business. After her formal education in the Chicago school system and elsewhere, she began work in a department store as a salesclerk. In 1915, at the age of 18, she decided to go to a Chicago movie studio with an aunt to see how motion pictures were made. She was plucked out of the crowd, because of her beauty, to be included as a bit player in the film The Fable of Elvira and Farina and the Meal Ticket (1915). In her next film, she was an extra also, when she appeared in At the End of a Perfect Day (1915). After another uncredited role, Gloria got a more substantial role in Sweedie Goes to College (1915). In 1916, she first appeared with future husband Wallace Beery. Once married, the two pulled up stakes in Chicago and moved to Los Angeles to the film colony of Hollywood. Once out west, Gloria continued her torrid pace in films. She seemed to be in hit after hit in such films as The Pullman Bride (1917), Shifting Sands (1918), and Don't Change Your Husband (1919). By the time of the latter, Gloria had divorced Beery and was remarried, but it was not to be her last marriage, as she collected a total of six husbands. By the middle 1920s, she was the highest-paid actress in Hollywood. It has been said that Gloria made and spent over $8 million in the '20s alone. That, along with the six marriages she had, kept the fans spellbound with her escapades for over 60 years. They just couldn't get enough of her. Gloria was 30 when the sound revolution hit, and there was speculation as to whether she could adapt. She did. In 1928, she received an Oscar nomination for Best Actress for her role of Sadie Thompson in the film of the same name but lost to Janet Gaynor for 3 different films. The following year, she again was nominated for the same award in The Trespasser (1929). This time, she lost out to Norma Shearer in The Divorcee (1930). By the 1930s, Gloria pared back her work with only four films during that time. She had taken a hiatus from film work after 1934's Music in the Air (1934) and would not be seen again until Father Takes a Wife (1941). That was to be it until 1950, when she starred in Sunset Boulevard (1950) as Norma Desmond opposite William Holden. She played a movie actress who was all but washed up. The movie was a box office smash and earned her a third Academy Award nomination as Best Actress, but she lost to Judy Holliday in Born Yesterday (1950). The film is considered one of the best in the history of film and, on June 16, 1998, was named one of the top 100 films of all time by the American Film Institute, placing 12th. After a few more films in the 1950s, Gloria more or less retired. Throughout the 1960s, she appeared mostly on television. Her last fling with the silver screen was Airport 1975 (1974), wherein she played herself. Gloria died on April 4, 1983, in New York City at the age of 84. There was never anyone like her, before or since.

Lewis Milestone, a clothing manufacturer's son, was born in Bessarabia (now Moldova), raised in Odessa (Ukraine) and educated in Belgium and Berlin (where he studied engineering). He was fluent in both German and Russian and an avid reader. Milestone had an affinity for the theatre from an early age, starting as a prop man and background artist before traveling to the US in 1914 with $6.00 in his pocket. After a succession of odd jobs (including as a dishwasher and a photographer's assistant) he joined the Army Signal Corps in 1917 to make educational short films for U.S. troops. Following World War I, having acquired American citizenship, he went on to Hollywood to meet the director William A. Seiter at Ince Studios. Seiter started him off as an assistant cutter. Milestone quickly worked his way up the ranks to become editor, assistant director and screenwriter on many of Seiter's projects in the early 1920s, experiences that would greatly influence his directing style in years to come.

Milestone directed his first film, Seven Sinners (1925), for Howard Hughes and two years later won his first of two Academy Awards for the comedy Two Arabian Knights (1927). He received his second Oscar for what most regard as his finest achievement, the anti-war movie All Quiet on the Western Front (1930), based on a novel by Erich Maria Remarque. The film, universally praised by reviewers for its eloquence and integrity, also won the Best Picture Academy Award that year. A noted Milestone innovation was the use of cameras mounted on wooden tracks, giving his films a more realistic and fluid, rather than static, look. Other trademarks associated with his pictures were taut editing, snappy dialogue and clever visual touches, good examples being the screwball comedy The Front Page (1931), the melodrama Rain (1932)--based on a play by W. Somerset Maugham--and an adaptation of John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men (1939). When asked in 1979 about the secret behind his success, he simply declared "Arrogance, chutzpah--in the old Hollywood at least that's the thing that gave everybody pause" (New York Times, September 27, 1980). Milestone had a history of being "difficult", having clashed with Howard Hughes, Warner Brothers and a host of studio executives over various contractual and artistic issues. Nonetheless, he remained constantly employed and worked for most of the major studios at one time or another, though never on long-term contracts. While he was not required to testify before HUAC, Milestone was blacklisted for a year in 1949 because of left-wing affiliations dating back to the 1930's. His output became less consistent during the 1950s and his career finished on a low with the remake of Mutiny on the Bounty (1962) and its incongruously cast, equally headstrong star Marlon Brando.

Milestone must be credited with a quirky sense of humor: when the producer of "All Quiet on the Western Front", Carl Laemmle Jr., demanded a "happy ending" for the picture, Milestone telephoned, "I've got your happy ending. We'll let the Germans win the war".

Having suffered a stroke, Lewis Milestone spent the last ten years of his life confined to a wheelchair. He died September 25, 1980, at the University of California Medical Center in Los Angeles.

Ted Wilde was born on 16 December 1889 in New York City, New York, USA. He was a director and writer, known for Speedy (1928), The Kid Brother (1927) and For Heaven's Sake (1926). He died on 17 December 1929 in Hollywood, California, USA.

Frank Borzage was born on 23 April 1894 in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA. He was an actor and director, known for 7th Heaven (1927), Bad Girl (1931) and No Greater Glory (1934). He was married to Juanita Scott, Edna Skelton and Rena Rogers. He died on 19 June 1962 in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA.

Herbert Brenon was born on 13 January 1880 in Dublin, Ireland, UK [now Republic of Ireland]. He was a director and writer, known for Beau Geste (1926), Ivanhoe (1913) and Sorrell and Son (1927). He was married to Mrs. Herbert Brenon. He died on 21 June 1958 in Los Angeles, California, USA.

King Vidor was an American film director, film producer, and screenwriter of Hungarian descent. He was born in Galveston, Texas to lumberman Charles Shelton Vidor and his wife Kate Wallis. King's paternal grandfather Károly (Charles) Vidor had fled Hungary as a refugee following the failed Hungarian Revolution of 1848 (1849-1849). The Kingdom of Hungary had attempted to gain independence from the Austrian Empire, but the revolutionary troops failed against the allied armies of the Austrian Empire and the Russian Empire. After the restoration of Habsburg power, Hungary was placed under brutal martial law. Karoly fled the country and settled in Galveston, Texas by the early 1850s.

During his childhood, King Vidor was a witness of the 1900 Galveston hurricane, the deadliest natural disaster in United States history. The hurricane caused between 6,000 and 12,000 fatalities in the United States, based on varying estimates. Most of these deaths occurred in the vicinity of Galveston. Every house in the city sustained damage, about 3600 houses were completely destroyed, and an estimated 10,000 people were left homeless, out of a population of about 38,000. King Vidor would later give a somewhat fictionalized account of his hurricane experience in a 1935 interview.

By the early 1910s, Vidor was working as a freelance newsreel cameraman and cinema projectionist. In 1913, he directed the short film "The Grand Military Parade", his directing debut. In 1915, Vidor moved to Hollywood, California and was hired as a screenwriter and short-film director by Judge Willis Brown (1881-1931), owner of the Boy City Film Company in Culver City. Brown had gained fame as a judge of the Utah Juvenile Court and a progressive expert on boys' reformation, but had been kicked out of service when it was discovered that he did not actually have a law degree. Brown had established himself as a film producer in order to produce films depicting his main concerns about American society: juvenile delinquency and racial discrimination. Vidor served as a screenwriter and director of at least 10 films with these topics, while working for Brown.

In 1919, Vidor directed his first feature film: "The Turn in the Road". It was a silent drama film, depicting a businessman who loses his faith in God and any interest in industry, when his beloved wife dies in childbirth. Vidor's first major hit was the feature "Peg o' My Heart" (1922), an adaptation of a popular Broadway theatrical play. Following this success, Vidor was signed to a long-term contract for the studio Goldwyn Pictures. The studio was under the administration of Polish-American producer Samuel Goldwyn (1879-1974). In 1924, Goldwyn Pictures merged with Metro Pictures and Louis B. Mayer Pictures into a new company: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Vidor remained on contract with this new company.

In the 1920s, Vidor's most famous silent feature films were the war film "The Big Parade" (1925), the Academy-Award nominated drama "The Crowd" (1928), the comedy "Show People"" (1928), and the comedy-drama "The Patsy" (1928). His first sound film was the drama "Hallelujah" (1929), about the life of sharecroppers. It was one of the first Hollywood films with a cast consisting fully of African-Americans. Vidor expressed an interest in "showing the Southern Negro as he is" and attempted to depict African-American life beyond the popular stereotypes of the era.

Vidor faced no problem in transitioning from silent film to sound film, and continued regularly working on feature films until the late 1950s. His last major film was the Biblical-romance "Solomon and Sheba" (1959), featuring love, court intrigues, and military invasions during the reign of legendary Solomon, King of Israel (estimated to the 10th century BC). Afterwards he worked on short films and documentaries, his last film being the documentary "The Metaphor" (1980). The 86-year-old Vidor chose to retire from filmmaking in 1980.

In 1982, at the age of 88, Vidor died at his ranch in Paso Robles, California from an unspecified heart disease. His remains were cremated and his ashes were scattered in his ranch.

Vidor was nominated 5 times for the Academy Award for Best Director, without ever winning. He was nominated for the feature films "The Crowd" (1928), "Hallelujah" (1929), "The Champ" (1931), "The Citadel" (1938), and "War and Peace" (1956). He won an Academy Honorary Award in 1979. Part of his modern fame rests on an uncredited part as an assistant director. Vidor directed the scenes set in Kansas for the novel adaptation "The Wizard of Oz" (1939).

Ben Hecht, one of Hollywood's and Broadway's greatest writers, won an Oscar for best original story for Underworld (1927) at the first Academy Awards in 1929 and had a hand in the writing of many classic films. He was nominated five more times for the best writing Oscar, winning (along with writing partner and friend Charles MacArthur, with whom he wrote the classic play "The Front Page") for The Scoundrel (1935) (the other nominations were for Viva Villa! (1934) in 1935, Wuthering Heights (1939) (shared with MacArthur), Angels Over Broadway (1940) and Notorious (1946), the latter two for best original screenplay). Hecht wrote fast and wrote well, and he was called upon by many producers as a highly paid script doctor. He was paid $10,000 by producer David O. Selznick for a fast doctoring of the Gone with the Wind (1939) script, for which he received no credit and for which Sidney Howard won an Oscar, beating out Hecht and MacArthur's Wuthering Heights (1939) script.

Born on February 28, 1894, Hecht made his name as a Chicago newspaperman during the heady days of cutthroat competition among newspapers and journalists. As a reporter for the Chicago Daily News, he wrote the column "1001 Afternoons in Chicago" and broke the "Ragged Stranger Murder Case" story, which led to the conviction and execution of Army war hero Carl Wanderer for the murder of his pregnant wife in 1921. The newspaper business, which he and MacArthur famously parodied in "The Front Page", was a good training ground for a screenwriter, as he had to write vivid prose and had to write quickly.

While in New York in 1926 he received a telegram from friend Herman J. Mankiewicz, who had recently arrived in Hollywood. The telegram read: "Millions are to be grabbed out here and your only competition is idiots. Don't let this get around." Hecht moved to Hollywood, winding up at Paramount, working uncredited on the script for Lewis Milestone's adaptation of Ring Lardner's story The New Klondike (1926), starring silent superstar Thomas Meighan. However, it was his script for Josef von Sternberg's seminal gangster picture Underworld (1927) that got him noticed. From then until the 1960s, he was arguably the most famous, if not the highest paid, screenwriter of his time.

As a playwright, novelist and short-story writer, Hecht always denigrated writing for the movies, but it is for such films as Scarface (1932) and Nothing Sacred (1937) as well The Front Page (1931), based on his play of the same name, for which he is best remembered.

He died on April 18, 1964, in New York City from thrombosis. He was 70 years old.

Lajos Biró was born on 22 August 1880 in Nagyvarad, Austria-Hungary [now Oradea, Bihor, Romania]. He was a writer, known for The Thief of Bagdad (1940), The Last Command (1928) and Women Everywhere (1930). He died on 9 September 1948 in London, England, UK.

Benjamin Glazer was born on 7 May 1887 in Belfast, Ireland [now Northern Ireland], UK. He was a writer and producer, known for 7th Heaven (1927), Arise, My Love (1940) and Strange Cargo (1929). He was married to Sharon Lynn. He died on 18 March 1956 in Hollywood, California, USA.

Anthony Coldeway was born on 1 August 1887 in Louisville, Kentucky, USA. He was a writer and director, known for Pacific Liner (1939), Glorious Betsy (1928) and Men of the Hour (1935). He died on 29 January 1963 in Los Angeles, California, USA.

Alfred Cohn moved to Cleveland, where he got a newspaper job. After getting married, he moved to Galveston, Texas, to run a newspaper. He then moved to Arizona, where he served as secretary to the constitutional convention of Arizona when it was admitted as a state in 1912.

Eventually, he moved to Hollywood and began writing scripts, completing a total of over 100 during his lifetime. He then went on to become head collector for the Port of Los Angeles, and became Commissioner of Police. He also wrote several books, some garnering best-selling labels.

His wife Grace (whom he married in Cleveland) and he had three children: Dorothy, Jackson, and Adrienne. Grace died in the 1940s from dropsy, and he from a heart condition in the early 1950s.

Joseph Farnham was born on 2 December 1884 in New Haven, Connecticut, USA. He was a writer and editor, known for Thunder (1929), Where East Is East (1929) and The Trail of '98 (1928). He was married to Rose Alma LeCourt and Emily Ardis. He died on 2 June 1931 in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, California, USA.

George Marion Jr. was born on 30 August 1899 in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. He was a writer, known for Let's Go Native (1930), Adorable (1933) and The Eagle (1925). He was married to Dorothy Maldeis. He died on 25 February 1968 in New York City, New York, USA.

American journalist, short-story writer, and film scenarist. Duffy was editor of Redbook magazine and a most prolific contributor of short stories to it and other serial magazines. He had written over 200 stories by the age of 23. His popularity as a writer led to employment by First National Studios as a scenario and title writer in 1919, and he wrote for dozens of films before dying suddenly at the studio while dictating a script. He was 32.

Among the foremost technical innovators in his field, a charter member of the American Society of Cinematographers, English-born Charles Rosher had initially aimed for a diplomatic career. Fortunately, he chose a different career option and attended lessons in photography at the London Polytechnic in Regent Street. He must have been a keen student, for he found himself apprenticed to noted portrait photographers David Blount and Howard Farmer, soon afterward becoming assistant to Richard Neville Speaight (1875-1938), the official Royal photographer. Having learned the art of still photography, Rosher departed England for the United States sometime in late 1908, equipped with a Williamson camera.

In 1910, Rosher found his first job in the fledgling film industry through a connection forged with an English compatriot, the pioneer producer David Horsley: as principal cameraman for Horsley's East Coast-based Centaur Film Company (which made Rosher Hollywood's first ever full-time cinematographer). Centaur was renamed Nestor Studios upon its permanent relocation to California in 1911, setting up at the corner of Sunset Boulevard and Gower Street. Essentially all of Rosher's early work consisted of one and two reelers, invariably made for Nestor's chief director, Al Christie. Some were comedies, many were 'quota quickie' westerns, such as The Indian Raiders (1912), for which Nestor imported genuine Indians from New Mexico.

In 1913, Rosher accompanied directors Raoul Walsh and Christy Cabanne on his famous expedition to Mexico to shoot the feature film The Life of General Villa (1914). The rebel leader Pancho Villa had agreed to grant exclusive rights to filming of his battles against the Federales by the Mutual Film Corporation, in exchange for a fee of $25,000 and 20% of all revenues from the picture. There were a number of hazards experienced by Rosher during this adventure, including capture by enemy forces, and at times coercive interference from Villa, who fancied himself as a filmmaker.

Upon his return to the other side of the border, Rosher had a brief spell with Universal (which had absorbed Nestor), followed by two years with the Lasky Feature Play Company (which later became Paramount). He then worked at United Artists from 1919 to 1928, becoming the favourite cinematographer of the company's biggest asset, Mary Pickford, lighting her in such a way that her true age never interfered with the image of the ingénue she persisted in portraying on screen. During this period, Rosher also developed his own unique visual style, which married artistry with technical know-how. He was much acclaimed for the sharpness and clarity of his photography, for the effects he achieved by combining natural and artificial light, photographing people against reflecting surfaces (glass, water), double exposure effects, split screen techniques, and so on. Rosher also patented several inventions, including a system for developing black & white film, ABC Pyro (A=pyro,B=sulfite,C=carbonate).

In 1929 Rosher became co-recipient (with Karl Struss) of the first-ever Oscar for cinematography bestowed by the Academy, for a film made at Fox: Sunrise (1927) - still regarded today as one of the finest examples of 1920's filmmaking. With its many scenes bathed in light or twilight, it has also been likened to a cinematic French impressionism. Rosher himself recalled this as one of the most difficult assignments of his career, particularly in terms of lighting such tricky scenes as the moonlit, fog-bound swamp, necessitating a very mobile camera. "Sunrise", inevitably, ended up winning the top award for 'unique and artistic production'. Two years later, after a falling out with Pickford during filming of Coquette (1929) , Rosher went his own way. He was never out of a job for long, working variously for RKO (1932-33), MGM (1930,1934) and Warner Brothers (1937-41).

Though he had made his reputation with black & white photography, Rosher easily adapted to the medium of colour. He enjoyed a major resurgence in the second half of his career, shooting some of the most sumptuous technicolor musicals (Ziegfeld Follies (1945), Show Boat (1951)) and dramas (The Yearling (1946),Scaramouche (1952)) during his tenure at MGM, which lasted from 1942 to 1954. He won his second Oscar for "Yearling" and became the only ever recipient of a fellowship by the Society of Motion Picture Engineers. Rosher retired in 1955, except for occasional lectures and guest appearances at film festivals. He settled down on a 1,600-acre plantation he had acquired at Port Antonio on Jamaica, formerly owned by Errol Flynn. He died in 1974 in Portugal, after a fall, at the respectable age of 88.

Oscar-winning cinematographer Karl Struss was born on November 30, 1886, in New York City. He became a professional photographer after studying photography with Clarence H. White and became part of the group associated with the great photographer Alfred Stieglitz. His photographs, which he characterized as "pictorial" rather than "fashion", were published in leading magazines, including "Harper's Bazaar," "Vanity Fair" and "Vogue."

Struss moved to Los Angeles in 1919 to practice his craft as a still photographer. He subsequently was hired by producer-director Cecil B. DeMille to serve as a cameraman in his second-unit. Along with Charles Rosher, he won the first Oscar ever awarded for cinematography at the first Academy Awards, for photographing Sunrise (1927) for F.W. Murnau. He was nominated for the Academy Award three more times for his cinematography.

In addition to DeMille and Murnau, Struss worked with such greats as Charles Chaplin and D.W. Griffith. After being the director of photography on Mary Pickford's Sparrows (1926), he was the lighting cameraman on her first sound film, Coquette (1929), for which she won a Best Actress Academy Award. He worked with other top stars such as Fredric March, who won an Oscar on the Struss-photographed Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931), for which Struss was also Oscar-nominated.

Karl Struss was not only one of the first cinematographers to work in color (he shot in two-strip Technicolor on the original screen version of Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1925)), he also was a pioneer in three-dimensional cinematography in the 1940s and 1950s.

Karl Struss died on December 15, 1981. He was 95 years old.

Veteran cinematographer George S. Barnes had a well-earned reputation for reliability and a knack for combining artistry with economic efficiency. As a result, he was seldom out of work.

Having started as a still photographer for Thomas H. Ince in 1918, Barnes quickly rose through the ranks to director of photography. In the course of his career he spent time at just about every major studio in Hollywood: Paramount (1919-21), Metro (1924-25), United Artists (1926-31), MGM (1932), Warner Brothers (1933-38), 20th Century-Fox (1940-41), Universal (1942) and RKO (1942-48). During the 1920s he was the primary cinematographer for Samuel Goldwyn and was largely responsible for the success of films like The Dark Angel (1925). Under his auspices Gregg Toland learned his craft, particularly Barnes' trademark soft-edged, deep-focus photography and intuitive composition and camera movement. Barnes was an expert at lighting. He often utilized curtains or reflective surfaces to create patterns of light and shade. Most importantly, he perfectly suited the required style of photography to each individual assignment. He brought a vivid opulence to the dullish Technicolor romance Frenchman's Creek (1944), making it a triumph of style over content. His 'catoon colours' were just as perfectly suited to the fantasy adventure Sinbad, the Sailor (1947). At Warner Brothers the dark, somewhat grainy texture of films like Marked Woman (1937) was in sync with the realistic look the studio wanted to achieve for its product. He also excelled at shooting vivid dramatic scenes, such as the flood sequences featured in The Winning of Barbara Worth (1926).

Barnes did his best work in the 1940s, shooting two classic Alfred Hitchcock thrillers: for Rebecca (1940) he created an atmosphere of sinister foreboding, right from the beginning, with his shots of Manderley (Barnes was hired because Toland was unavailable, but he ended up winning an Academy Award); and Spellbound (1945), with its unsettling surrealist Salvador Dalí-designed dream sequence of wheels, eyes and staircases. A lesser, but nonetheless good-looking, addition to Barnes' resume is a minor film noir, The File on Thelma Jordon (1949). In contrast, he created a suitably lavish look for his color photography, which enlivened two charismatic swashbuckling adventures, The Spanish Main (1945) and Sinbad, the Sailor (1947). Popular with directors and producers (though he was once fired by David O. Selznick for failing to bring the best out of Jennifer Jones) and stars (Bing Crosby) alike, Barnes was continually employed until his retirement in 1953. He was also popular with the ladies, to which his seven marriages testify. One of his wives was the actress Joan Blondell.

William Cameron Menzies was educated at Yale University, the University of Edinburgh and at the Art Students League in New York. He entered the film industry in 1919, after serving with the U.S. Expeditionary Forces in World War I. His initial assignments were in film design and special effects, as assistant to Anton Grot at Famous Players-Lasky. Menzies drew inspiration from German Expressionism and from the work of D.W. Griffith. His sense of visual style was quickly recognized and he was promoted to full art director after only three years. At United Artists (1923-30, 1935-40) and Fox (1931-33), he eventually designed for stars like Rudolph Valentino, Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford. He worked for all three of the major independent producers: Samuel Goldwyn, David O. Selznick and Walter Wanger. Menzies also had the singular distinction of receiving the first-ever Oscar for art direction (for The Dove (1927)).

His flamboyant and exotic fairy-tale sets for The Thief of Bagdad (1924) are regarded to this day as a work of pure genius. From the beginning of the sound era, Menzies also got involved in directing and producing. During the 1940's, he worked frequently with the director Sam Wood, whose films he improved dramatically through his designs. Over time, Menzies acquired a well-earned reputation for his larger-then-life personality, his visual flair and love of adventure and fantasy in films. He defined and solidified the role of the art director as having overall control over the look of the finished motion picture. He was a tireless innovator, who meticulously pre-planned the color and design of each film through a series of continuity sketches that outlined camera angles, lighting and the position of actors in each scene. For Gone with the Wind (1939), he and J. McMillan Johnson drew some 2000 detailed watercolor sketches, that got him the Honorary Academy Award 1940 "For outstanding achievement in the use of color for the enhancement of dramatic mood" of the film.

An historian, Wilbur G. Kurtz, was employed on the project to provide additional accuracy of period detail. Menzies himself directed the famous burning of Atlanta sequence and hospital sequence, including the famous long shot of wounded and dying Confederate soldiers, taken from a 90-foot crane.

A consummate designer of film architecture on a grand scale, Menzies was rather less effective as a director, consistently displaying an inability to draw strong performances from his cast. As a result, others were often brought in as co-directors, forcing Menzies to share the credit. In the 1950's, he helmed several low-budget films, which stand out purely for their characteristically good visuals, as, for example, Invaders from Mars (1953).

Menzies was inducted into the Art Directors Guild Hall of Fame in 2005.

Harry Oliver was born on 4 April 1888 in Hastings, Minnesota, USA. He was an art director and set decorator, known for Scarface (1932), 7th Heaven (1927) and Street Angel (1928). He died on 5 July 1973 in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California, USA.

Rochus Gliese was born on 6 January 1891 in Berlin, Germany. He was an art director and director, known for Brüder (1923), Komödie des Herzens (1924) and Die schöne Prinzessin von China (1917). He died on 22 December 1978 in West Berlin, West Germany.

Roy Pomeroy was born on 20 April 1892 in Darjeeling, India. He was a director, known for Shock (1934), Inside the Lines (1930) and Interference (1928). He was married to Sylvia. He died on 3 September 1947 in Los Angeles, California, USA.