Lee Garmes

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Lee Garmes (May 27, 1898 - August 31, 1978) was an award-winning American cinematographer. During his career, he worked with Howard Hawks, Max Ophuls, Josef von Sternberg, William Dieterle, Alfred Hitchcock, King Vidor, Nicholas Ray and Henry Hathaway, whom he had met as a young man when the two first came to Hollywood in the silent era. He also co-directed two films with legendary screenwriter Ben Hecht: Angels Over Broadway and Actors and Sin.

1 Biography & Work
2 Awards & Recognition
3 Partial filmography
4 External links

[edit] Biography & Work

Born in Peoria, Illinois, Garmes first came to Hollywood in 1916. His first job was as an assistant in the paint department at Thomas H. Ince Studios, but he soon before a camera assistant before graduating to full-time cameraman. His earliest films were comedy shorts, and his career did not fully take off until the introduction of sound.

Garmes was married to film actress Ruth Hall from 1933 until his death in 1978. He is interred in the Grand View Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California.

Garmes was one of the earliest proponents of video technology, which he advocated as early as 1972. That year, he had been hired by Technicolor to lens the short film Why, which was intended as a test of whether video was a viable technology for shooting feature films.

[edit] Awards & Recognition

Garmes directed the photography on six films that were nominated for an Academy Award. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Cinematography four times, winning once in 1932 for Shanghai Express. In addition, Garmes twice received the Eastman Kodak Award.

According to American Cinematographer Magazine of November 1978, "Although officially unaccredited, Lee Garmes photographed a considerable portion of Gone with the Wind. Many consider the famous railroad yard sequence among his finest cinematic efforts."