Born Charles Bryant Lang, Jr., March 27, 1902, in Bluff, UT; died of pneumonia, April 3, 1998, in Santa Monica, CA. Cinematographer.
An award-winning cameraman, Lang delighted audiences with his film work thatspanned parts of six decades. In all, he worked behind the camera on more than 150 films, including A Farewell to Arms, So Proudly We Hail,and One-Eyed Jacks. He was known for using camera techniques that werekind to the actors. He once told the Los Angeles Times how legendaryactress Marlene Dietrich taught him how to soften the lighting to make her look her best: "It was glamour lighting, not realistic, but great. . . . She knew where that light should be: a long way off and way up high." Early in hiscareer, he worked as a cinematographer for Realart Studio from 1919 to 1922.He joined the Preferred Picture Corp. in the early 1920s before taking a jobwith Paramount. Lang served as director of photography with Paramount from 1929 until 1952. His first film with the company was The Shopworn Angel.In the 1920s and 1930s his films included For the Defense, Tom Sawyer, She Done Him Wrong, and Death Takes a Holiday. His work in the 1940s and 1950s was for productions such as The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, Sabrina, Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, and Some LikeIt Hot. He began the 1960s with films like The Magnificent Seven and How the West Was Won and followed with Inside Daisy Clover, Wait until Dark, and Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice. Among hislast films was 1972's Butterflies Are Free, which earned him one of his many Academy Award nominations. He received eighteen nominations during his career, but only one award. He worked on a variety of films, including suspense thrillers, westerns, comedies, and romances. In 1990 he received the Lifetime Achievement Award of the American Society of Cinematographers. Two years later he was featured in the documentary Visions of Light: The Art of Cinematography.
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