Tony Gaudio(1883-1951)
- Cinematographer
- Director
- Camera and Electrical Department
Tony Gaudio was born Gaetano Antonio Gaudio on November 20, 1883, in
Cosenza, Italy, to a professional photographer. After attended art
school in Rome, he became an assistant to his father and elder brother,
who were portrait photographers. Eventually he segued into cinema,
starting with "Napoleon Crossing the Alps" in 1903, and he eventually
shot hundreds of short subjects for Italian film companies before
moving to the US in 1906. Both he and his younger brother
Eugene Gaudio, who served the same
apprenticeship with both the family studio and with Italian filmmakers,
would emigrate to America and become prominent cinematographers (Eugene
was one of the founders of the American Society of Cinematographers in
1919; Tony would become a member of the organization and then serve as
president).
In New York in 1906 Tony was employed by Al Simpson to produce "song
slides" that could be shown in theaters so patrons could sing along
with the music. After quitting Simpson in 1908, he worked in
Vitagraph's film development laboratories in New York, then moved over
to Carl Laemmle's IMP (Independent Moving
Picture Co.) to supervise the construction of IMP's New York
laboratories. From 1910-12 he became the chief of cinematographers at
IMP, where he shot Mary Pickford's films
for director Thomas H. Ince (he would
later shoot The Gaucho (1927) for her
husband, Douglas Fairbanks.)
Laemmle had wooed Pickford away from Biograph by offering her $175 a
week, thus helping create the star system (Pickford soon left Laemmle
for Adolph Zukor's Famous Players, where
she was paid $10,000 per week; she left Zukor for First National, where
she was paid $350,000 per film). Known as "Uncle Carl", Laemmle was
famous for his nepotism, which extended even to a second cousin from
Alsace, France, the future director
William Wyler.
Tony's own brother Eugene would work for IMP as the superintendent of
its development lab before switching to cinematography himself. As for
Tony, he left IMP to work for Biograph and other companies before
finding a home at Metro Pictures by 1916, where his brother Eugene now
worked as a director. At Metro Tony shot 10 films for director
Fred J. Balshofer and eventually wound
up at First National in the early 1920s through his work as a cameraman
for sisters Constance Talmadge and
Norma Talmadge. From 1922-25 he shot nine
Norma Talmadge pictures.
Eugene had died in 1920, and from 1923-24 Tony served as president of
the American Society of Cinematographers, the professional body his
brother had helped create to promote standardization in the industry
and to serve as a clearinghouse for information for cameramen. Tony was
at the forefront of technical innovation in his craft; in 1922 he
invented a viewfinder for the new Mitchell camera. In the 1920s the
Hollywood motion picture industry was dominated by Bell+Howell cameras,
but Mitchell established a foothold and broke through by the end of the
decade. While the Bell+Howell produced a superior image due to its
innovative pressure plate behind the lens, it was too noisy for sound
work, which opened up the market to Mitchell. The ASC helped promote
innovations such as the viewfinder. This was rooted in the fact that in
the first generation of cinema, cameramen owned their own cameras and
modified them themselves. To be a cameraman one also had to be a
tinkerer (Tony also would later invent the camera focusing microscope).
Tony also was an expert--as were many early cameramen--in the
development of film, as most cinematographers took a hands-on approach
to development in order to ensure not just the quality of their images,
but to achieve effects in the lab. It was while he was employed by
First National as the superintendent of the studio's film labs in 1925
that he directed two feature films released by the Poverty Row studio
Columbia Pictures Corp.
In the 1920s he helped photograph Douglas Fairbanks'
The Mark of Zorro (1920),
pioneering the use of montage, and was lighting cameraman on Fairbanks'
1927 "The Gaucho", which featured one of the earliest two-strip
Technicolor sequences (Gaudio also shot two-strip Technicolor scenes
for On with the Show! (1929)
and General Crack (1929)). He made
his reputation during the 1920s as the chief cameraman for such top
directors as Allan Dwan,
Frank Borzage and
Marshall Neilan, as well as for tyro
director Howard Hughes' dialogue
scenes with Harry Perry on the
aerial scenes of
Hell's Angels (1930).
When First National was acquired by Warner Bros. in 1928, Gaudio moved
over to the new studio, signing a long-term contract with Warners in
1930. In time, he and his fellow Italian immigrant
Sol Polito would become the
co-chief-cinematographers at the studio and help fashion the distinct
Warner Bros. "look" that was influenced by German Expressionism.
The opinionated Tony Gaudio was prone to clash with his directors, and
Oscar-winning director
Lewis Milestone'--who won his first
Oscar on a film lensed by Gaudio,
Two Arabian Knights (1927)--nearly
fired him from
The Front Page (1931) (Gaudio
served as the second cameraman on Milesteone's anti-war masterpiece
All Quiet on the Western Front (1930),
for which the director won his second Oscar, and would shoot his last
film for Milestone:
The Red Pony (1949), which is
renowned for its mastery of color). The studio tolerated his
temperament as he was a master of black and white cinematography,
winning six Academy Award nominations and one Oscar from 1930 through
1946, when he was nominated for Best Color Cinematography for the first
time.
Gaudio, fellow co-cinematographer-in-chief Polito,
Barney McGill and
Sidney Hickox were instrumental in
creating the Warner Bros. "look" of the 1930s. Warners, the most
progressive studio in Hollywood, was prone to filming subjects torn
from the day's headlines; the Brothers Warner, as represented by studio
boss Jack L. Warner, did not demand a
glamorous aesthetic as did MGM, for instance (Gaudio shot
Mervyn LeRoy's gangster classic
Little Caesar (1931) while Polito
shot
I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932)
for Leroy two years later). Gaudio, Polito and the other
cinematographers they supervised thus were able to light their sets to
evoke mood and atmosphere. The extremely versatile Gaudio shot all
kinds of movies in every genre, from the prestigious A-pictures to
B-movies.
Along with Polito, Gaudio shot Warners' most prestigious films, winning
an Oscar for his black and white cinematography on
Anthony Adverse (1936). He shot
Warners' first three-strip Technicolor film,
God's Country and the Woman (1937),
directed by William Keighley, and,
subsequently, the studio assigned Gaudio and Keighley to what was their
most ambitious picture ever:
The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938),
which was also to be shot in the difficult Technicolor. The film would
eventually cost $4 million, making it the most expensive film in
history to the time, but Gaudio and Keighley were removed from the
project by producer Hal B. Wallis for
working too slowly. The film was finished by Polito and director
Michael Curtiz, though all four
ultimately shared screen credit on the picture and Gaudio's footage
remained in the film.
Gaudio was a regular cameraman for
Bette Davis, who became the studio's
greatest star during the 1930s. Gaudio originally gave Davis the glamor
treatment, but by the time he shot
Bordertown (1935), starring
Paul Muni as a Mexican-American lawyer
in a corrupt town, Gaudio didn't flinch when--shooting the film with a
stark realism--he deglamorized Davis, as he would later in two period
films, Juarez (1939) and
The Old Maid (1939).
Critics believe that Gaudio reached the zenith of his craft on another
Davis vehicle, director
'William Wyler (I)''s adaptation of
W. Somerset Maugham's novel,
The Letter (1940). For the picture
Gaudio's camera evoked a moodiness pregnant with violence. The opening
shot of the film, a slow track through the Malaysian rubber plantation
that is the setting for the story about to transpire, is extremely
memorable.
When Gaudio shot High Sierra (1940)
for Raoul Walsh, he worked in an
ultra-realistic, documentary-like fashion that was a precursor of film
noir. He parted company with Warners in 1943 after shooting
Background to Danger (1943)
to go freelance. His next picture, Universal's
Corvette K-225 (1943), brought him
an Oscar nomination. He won his last Oscar nomination, for color
cinematography, in 1946, for
A Song to Remember (1945).
Tony Gaudio died on August 10, 1951. He was 67 years old.
Cosenza, Italy, to a professional photographer. After attended art
school in Rome, he became an assistant to his father and elder brother,
who were portrait photographers. Eventually he segued into cinema,
starting with "Napoleon Crossing the Alps" in 1903, and he eventually
shot hundreds of short subjects for Italian film companies before
moving to the US in 1906. Both he and his younger brother
Eugene Gaudio, who served the same
apprenticeship with both the family studio and with Italian filmmakers,
would emigrate to America and become prominent cinematographers (Eugene
was one of the founders of the American Society of Cinematographers in
1919; Tony would become a member of the organization and then serve as
president).
In New York in 1906 Tony was employed by Al Simpson to produce "song
slides" that could be shown in theaters so patrons could sing along
with the music. After quitting Simpson in 1908, he worked in
Vitagraph's film development laboratories in New York, then moved over
to Carl Laemmle's IMP (Independent Moving
Picture Co.) to supervise the construction of IMP's New York
laboratories. From 1910-12 he became the chief of cinematographers at
IMP, where he shot Mary Pickford's films
for director Thomas H. Ince (he would
later shoot The Gaucho (1927) for her
husband, Douglas Fairbanks.)
Laemmle had wooed Pickford away from Biograph by offering her $175 a
week, thus helping create the star system (Pickford soon left Laemmle
for Adolph Zukor's Famous Players, where
she was paid $10,000 per week; she left Zukor for First National, where
she was paid $350,000 per film). Known as "Uncle Carl", Laemmle was
famous for his nepotism, which extended even to a second cousin from
Alsace, France, the future director
William Wyler.
Tony's own brother Eugene would work for IMP as the superintendent of
its development lab before switching to cinematography himself. As for
Tony, he left IMP to work for Biograph and other companies before
finding a home at Metro Pictures by 1916, where his brother Eugene now
worked as a director. At Metro Tony shot 10 films for director
Fred J. Balshofer and eventually wound
up at First National in the early 1920s through his work as a cameraman
for sisters Constance Talmadge and
Norma Talmadge. From 1922-25 he shot nine
Norma Talmadge pictures.
Eugene had died in 1920, and from 1923-24 Tony served as president of
the American Society of Cinematographers, the professional body his
brother had helped create to promote standardization in the industry
and to serve as a clearinghouse for information for cameramen. Tony was
at the forefront of technical innovation in his craft; in 1922 he
invented a viewfinder for the new Mitchell camera. In the 1920s the
Hollywood motion picture industry was dominated by Bell+Howell cameras,
but Mitchell established a foothold and broke through by the end of the
decade. While the Bell+Howell produced a superior image due to its
innovative pressure plate behind the lens, it was too noisy for sound
work, which opened up the market to Mitchell. The ASC helped promote
innovations such as the viewfinder. This was rooted in the fact that in
the first generation of cinema, cameramen owned their own cameras and
modified them themselves. To be a cameraman one also had to be a
tinkerer (Tony also would later invent the camera focusing microscope).
Tony also was an expert--as were many early cameramen--in the
development of film, as most cinematographers took a hands-on approach
to development in order to ensure not just the quality of their images,
but to achieve effects in the lab. It was while he was employed by
First National as the superintendent of the studio's film labs in 1925
that he directed two feature films released by the Poverty Row studio
Columbia Pictures Corp.
In the 1920s he helped photograph Douglas Fairbanks'
The Mark of Zorro (1920),
pioneering the use of montage, and was lighting cameraman on Fairbanks'
1927 "The Gaucho", which featured one of the earliest two-strip
Technicolor sequences (Gaudio also shot two-strip Technicolor scenes
for On with the Show! (1929)
and General Crack (1929)). He made
his reputation during the 1920s as the chief cameraman for such top
directors as Allan Dwan,
Frank Borzage and
Marshall Neilan, as well as for tyro
director Howard Hughes' dialogue
scenes with Harry Perry on the
aerial scenes of
Hell's Angels (1930).
When First National was acquired by Warner Bros. in 1928, Gaudio moved
over to the new studio, signing a long-term contract with Warners in
1930. In time, he and his fellow Italian immigrant
Sol Polito would become the
co-chief-cinematographers at the studio and help fashion the distinct
Warner Bros. "look" that was influenced by German Expressionism.
The opinionated Tony Gaudio was prone to clash with his directors, and
Oscar-winning director
Lewis Milestone'--who won his first
Oscar on a film lensed by Gaudio,
Two Arabian Knights (1927)--nearly
fired him from
The Front Page (1931) (Gaudio
served as the second cameraman on Milesteone's anti-war masterpiece
All Quiet on the Western Front (1930),
for which the director won his second Oscar, and would shoot his last
film for Milestone:
The Red Pony (1949), which is
renowned for its mastery of color). The studio tolerated his
temperament as he was a master of black and white cinematography,
winning six Academy Award nominations and one Oscar from 1930 through
1946, when he was nominated for Best Color Cinematography for the first
time.
Gaudio, fellow co-cinematographer-in-chief Polito,
Barney McGill and
Sidney Hickox were instrumental in
creating the Warner Bros. "look" of the 1930s. Warners, the most
progressive studio in Hollywood, was prone to filming subjects torn
from the day's headlines; the Brothers Warner, as represented by studio
boss Jack L. Warner, did not demand a
glamorous aesthetic as did MGM, for instance (Gaudio shot
Mervyn LeRoy's gangster classic
Little Caesar (1931) while Polito
shot
I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932)
for Leroy two years later). Gaudio, Polito and the other
cinematographers they supervised thus were able to light their sets to
evoke mood and atmosphere. The extremely versatile Gaudio shot all
kinds of movies in every genre, from the prestigious A-pictures to
B-movies.
Along with Polito, Gaudio shot Warners' most prestigious films, winning
an Oscar for his black and white cinematography on
Anthony Adverse (1936). He shot
Warners' first three-strip Technicolor film,
God's Country and the Woman (1937),
directed by William Keighley, and,
subsequently, the studio assigned Gaudio and Keighley to what was their
most ambitious picture ever:
The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938),
which was also to be shot in the difficult Technicolor. The film would
eventually cost $4 million, making it the most expensive film in
history to the time, but Gaudio and Keighley were removed from the
project by producer Hal B. Wallis for
working too slowly. The film was finished by Polito and director
Michael Curtiz, though all four
ultimately shared screen credit on the picture and Gaudio's footage
remained in the film.
Gaudio was a regular cameraman for
Bette Davis, who became the studio's
greatest star during the 1930s. Gaudio originally gave Davis the glamor
treatment, but by the time he shot
Bordertown (1935), starring
Paul Muni as a Mexican-American lawyer
in a corrupt town, Gaudio didn't flinch when--shooting the film with a
stark realism--he deglamorized Davis, as he would later in two period
films, Juarez (1939) and
The Old Maid (1939).
Critics believe that Gaudio reached the zenith of his craft on another
Davis vehicle, director
'William Wyler (I)''s adaptation of
W. Somerset Maugham's novel,
The Letter (1940). For the picture
Gaudio's camera evoked a moodiness pregnant with violence. The opening
shot of the film, a slow track through the Malaysian rubber plantation
that is the setting for the story about to transpire, is extremely
memorable.
When Gaudio shot High Sierra (1940)
for Raoul Walsh, he worked in an
ultra-realistic, documentary-like fashion that was a precursor of film
noir. He parted company with Warners in 1943 after shooting
Background to Danger (1943)
to go freelance. His next picture, Universal's
Corvette K-225 (1943), brought him
an Oscar nomination. He won his last Oscar nomination, for color
cinematography, in 1946, for
A Song to Remember (1945).
Tony Gaudio died on August 10, 1951. He was 67 years old.