Karl Struss

Karl Struss, A.S.C. (November 30, 1886 — December 15, 1981) was an American photographer and a cinematographer of the 1900s through the 1950s. He was also one of the earliest pioneers of 3-D films. While he mostly worked on films, such as F. W. Murnau's Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans and Charles Chaplin's The Great Dictator and Limelight, he was also one of the cinematographers for the television series Broken Arrow and photographed 19 episodes of My Friend Flicka.

He was born in New York, New York and attended Columbia University, graduating with a B.A. in 1912. He studied photography with Clarence H. White, a faculty member at Columbia. His first successes came selling photographs to magazines including Vogue, Vanity Fair, and Harper's Bazaar. (However, he was quick to insist that he was not doing fashion photography.)

In 1919, he moved to Los Angeles and signed on with Cecil B. DeMille as a cameraman and subsequently worked on many films. He was later also admitted to the American Society of Cinematographers.

In 1949, he began his work in "stereo cinematography", becoming one of the first proponents of that art form. Unfortunately, he did most of his 3D work in Italy and none of his films were subsequently released in 3D in the United States.

Awards

In his career, Struss was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Cinematography four times. The first time, and the only time he won, was for F. W. Murnau's Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans in 1929, sharing that award with Charles Rosher. He was nominated again in 1932 for Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, in 1934 for The Sign of the Cross, and in 1942 for Aloma of the South Seas with Wilfred M. Cline, A.S.C. and William E. Snyder, A.S.C.

Selected filmography

• Ben-Hur (1925)
• Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927) with Janet Gaynor
• Babe Comes Home (1927) with Babe Ruth and Anna Q. Nilsson
• Night Watch (1928)
• Love and the Devil (1929)
• The Taming of the Shrew (1929) with Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford
• Be Yourself! (1930) with Fanny Brice and Robert Armstrong
• Up Pops the Devil (1931) with Carole Lombard
• Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931) with Fredric March and Miriam Hopkins
• Island of Lost Souls (1932) with Charles Laughton and Bela Lugosi
• The Woman Accused (1933) with Nancy Carroll and Cary Grant
• Every Day's a Holiday (1937) with Mae West
• Double or Nothing (1937) with Bing Crosby, Andy Devine and William Frawley
• Some Like It Hot (1939) with Bob Hope, Shirley Ross and Gene Krupa
• Zenobia (1939) with Oliver Hardy and Harry Langdon
• The Great Dictator (1940) with Charles Chaplin and Paulette Goddard
• Journey Into Fear (1943) with Orson Welles and Joseph Cotten
• The Texan Meets Calamity Jane (1950) with Evelyn Ankers
• Limelight (1952) with Charles Chaplin and Buster Keaton
• She Devil (1957) with Jack Kelly and Albert Dekker
• The Fly (1958) with Vincent Price