1. Lucien Ballard worked on more than 130 films during his 50-year career, collaborating multiple times with directors including Josef von Sternberg, John Brahm, Henry Hathaway, Budd Boetticher, Raoul Walsh, Sam Peckinpah and Tom Gries.
22 Facts About Lucien Ballard
1. 2.
Lucien Ballard was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Cinematography for The Caretakers.
3.
Lucien Ballard attended the University of Oklahoma and the University of Pennsylvania and after graduating, he became a surveyor.
4.
Lucien Ballard later joked in an interview that it was a three-day party at the home of actress Clara Bow that convinced him "this is the business for me".
5.
Lucien Ballard began his career loading trucks at Paramount and trained to be a camera assistant.
6.
Lucien Ballard was taken on as an assistant to Lee Garmes on Josef von Sternberg's Morocco.
7.
Director Von Sternberg left Columbia after only two pictures, but Lucien Ballard stayed with the company and became a valuable member of the staff.
8.
Lucien Ballard lent his professionalism to Columbia's Charles Starrett westerns and even its two-reel comedies, starring The Three Stooges, Charley Chase, Andy Clyde, and Harry Langdon.
9.
Lucien Ballard was involved in a near-fatal car crash in London, and sustained facial scarring.
10.
Lucien Ballard invented a special light for Oberon's benefit: the invention, mounted by the side of the camera, provided direct light onto a subject's face while reducing the appearance of blemishes and wrinkles.
11.
Lucien Ballard was the camera man for the screen tests, did some of the second unit work for director Howard Hawks, and assisted cinematographer Gregg Toland on the first unit crew.
12.
Lucien Ballard filmed Laura for Rouben Mamoulian until Otto Preminger took over as director.
13.
In 1930 Lucien Ballard had worked with assistant director Henry Hathaway.
14.
Lucien Ballard worked on a segment of O Henry's Full House with him.
15.
Lucien Ballard made The House on Telegraph Hill and The Desert Rats for Robert Wise; Return of the Texan and Susan Slade with Delmer Daves; three films with Raoul Walsh including The King and Four Queens and Band of Angels ; and three films with Roy Ward Baker, including Inferno, often considered the best shot color 3D film of the era.
16.
Lucien Ballard worked with Stanley Kubrick on The Killing.
17.
Lucien Ballard was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Cinematography for The Caretakers.
18.
Lucien Ballard won the National Society of Film Critics award for Best Cinematography for The Wild Bunch.
19.
Lucien Ballard formed a partnership with Tom Gries making five films, including Will Penny and Breakheart Pass.
20.
Lucien Ballard died at the age of 84 in 1988, two days after being involved in a car accident near his home in Indian Wells, California.
21.
Lucien Ballard then married Merle Oberon; the union lasted five years.
22.
Lucien Ballard had two daughters, Zoe and Pamela, from his first marriage to McLellan.