William A. Fraker

An elder statesman of cinematography traditionally trained in the old style of the Hollywood cameraman, William A Fraker successfully bridged the gap to the newer freedoms and technological innovations of modern cinema, all the while actively campaigning to enhance the status of the director of photography within the industry power structure. His maternal grandmother, father and uncle had all worked as still photographers within the studio system, and he resolved at an early age to be a cameraman. After attending the University of Southern California's film school on the GI Bill and finding himself frozen out of The Camera Guild, Fraker scraped by as an editor at various television production companies and took non-union camera jobs shooting inserts and stock footage. He finally began as a loader in 1954 on the ABC series "The Lone Ranger" and subsequently spent over seven years on "The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet" (ABC), rising from second assistant to operator during that time. He has often expressed his appreciation for director-star Ozzie Nelson: "If there's any success I've achieved or will achieve, I attribute the major portion of it to Ozzie."

Once he became an operator, Fraker began his association with fellow USC alum Conrad Hall on such TV shows as the Western "Stoney Burke" (ABC, 1962-63) and "The Outer Limits" (1963-65). When Hall graduated to features, he tapped Fraker as his operator for three of his first four pictures as director of photography, two of which ("Morituri" 1965, "The Professionals" 1966) earned him Oscar nominations. Fraker then made his own debut as cinematographer on "The Games" (1967) and followed quickly that year with "The Fox" and "The President's Analyst", wherein he began to push boundaries via use of faster and wider lenses, restricted lighting sources and techniques like "flashing" and deliberate overexposure. He would truly prove his mettle in 1968 with two very diverse, commercial properties. Shooting almost entirely inside, he helped director Roman Polanski capture the dreamlike, claustrophobic quality of the restrained horror classic "Rosemary's Baby". In contrast, Peter Yates' "Bullitt" exploded off the screen, and its vicious duel between a Mustang Fastback and a Dodge Charger along San Francisco's rolling hills established the benchmark for automobile chase sequences. He also landed Joshua Logan's big-budget epic musical "Paint Your Wagon" (1969) because art director-production designer John Truscott had seen "The Fox" and knew they were striving for a similar look.

"Paint Your Wagon" was the first Western feature Fraker photographed, but the homegrown Southern Californian has often steered his career back to that genre in a continuing effort to bring his vision of the West to the screen. "I love Westerns, because that period is one of the most romantic times in history," he told American Cinematographer (February 2000). He made his feature directorial debut with "Monte Walsh" (1970), based on the novel by Jack Schaefer (the author of "Shane"). The film starred Lee Marvin as an aging cowboy who realizes that the West he knew and loved was vanishing, taking his place with it as well. In addition to revisiting the West (and his professional past) for his third directing assignment, "The Legend of the Lone Ranger" (1981), which he shot in Monument Valley as an homage to director John Ford, he has also addressed his Western vision as a director of photography on the films "Rancho Deluxe" (1975), "Murphy's Romance" (1985) and "Tombstone" (1993).

Despite periodic work as a director, Fraker's first love remains cinematography, and he has frequently been invaluable as a director of photography to first-time directors like Floyd Mutrux ("Dusty and Sweets McGee" 1971), inaugurating a five-picture collaboration, and Charles Shyer ("Irreconcilable Differences" 1984), with whom he worked on two additional features. He met actor Burt Reynolds on the set of "Fade-In" (1968) and later served as cinematographer on his directing debut, "Gator" (1976), as well as for "Sharkey's Machine" (1981), not to mention directing him in the ABC movie "The Dancer's Touch" (1989). "Heaven Can Wait" (1978) successfully paired Fraker with first-time co-directors Warren Beatty and Buck Henry and allowed him to re-create the old studio lighting of the "Golden Age" pictures that had inspired him in the first place. That film earned him his second Oscar nomination (the first, "Looking for Mr. Goodbar", had come the year before), and he would garner four more nods (two for "1941" 1979, "WarGames" 1983 and "Murphy's Romance").

Fraker followed his illustrious peers Haskell Wexler and Bill Butler to shoot the last 10 days or so of Milos Forman's Academy Award-winning Best Picture "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" (1975) and true to his mantra of "consistency" kept to the style established by his predecessors. Two decades later, he and John Frankenheimer signed on to "The Island of Dr. Moreau" (1996) a week into production after the original cinematographer and director had quit over creative differences with the studio. Although he hasn't helmed a feature since "The Legend of the Lone Ranger", his directing work for TV has included six episodes of the acclaimed CBS series "Wise Guy" at the end of the 80s and a 1993 episode of "Walker, Texas Ranger" (CBS). After he worked with yet another first-timer, Stephen Kessler, on "Vegas Vacation" (1997), Fraker's inability to find meaningful material kept him on the sidelines for the rest of the 90s, but following his receipt of the 1999 Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Society of Cinematographers, he roared back with two highly-anticipated features, William Friedkin's "Rules of Engagement" (2000) and Peter Chelsom's "Town & Country" (2001), the latter reuniting him with Warren Beatty.

• Also Credited As:
  William A. Fraker, William Fraker
• Born:
  September 29, 1923 in Los Angeles, California, USA
• Job Titles:
  Director of photography, Director, Actor, Assistant cameraman, Camera loader, Camera operator, Editor, Producer, Still photographer

Family

• Father: William Fraker Jr. learned craft from mother-in-law; started out at Universal, Pathe and First National before running the stills gallery at Columbia from 1928-1929 to 1934, when he died of pneumonia; of Pennsylvania Dutch extraction
• Son: William A Fraker Jr. born on July 14, 1960; had a bit role in father s directing debut ( Monte Walsh ); worked as second assistant camera on a number of his dad s films, including The Legend of the Lone Ranger (1981), Murphy s Romance (1985) and SpaceCamp (1986), before dying tragically
• Uncle: Charles Fraker. worked for Fraker s dad before moving to Paramount, where he later took over the department and ran it until after World War II, when the studios eliminated all their stills galleries

Significant Others

• Companion: . has been married

Education

• University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, film, 1951

Milestones

• 1954 Got start in television, beginning as a loader on the ABC series The Lone Ranger
• 1956 Served as camera assistant on The Young Guns
• 1961 Worked as director of photography on the documentary Forbid Them Not
• 1964 Was camera operator on Father Goose
• 1965 Operated camera on three of Hall s first four features as director of photography, Wild Seed , Morituri and The Professionals (first collaboration with director Richard Brooks); the latter two earned Hall Oscar nominations
• 1967 Feature debut as director of photography, Games (Universal)
• 1968 Enjoyed professional and creative turning point with the success of Roman Polanski s Rosemary s Baby and Peter Yates Bullitt , serving as director of photographer on both
• 1968 First association with Burt Reynolds, Fade-In
• 1970 Made feature directorial debut with Monte Walsh
• 1971 First of five films with director Floyd Mutrux, the semi-documentary Dusty and Sweets McGee ; also appeared in picture as a big-time drug dealer, as well as being a partner in the Laughlin-Fraker-Mutrux-Michael Production
• 1971 Helmed Reflection of Fear (released in 1973)
• 1975 Reteamed with Mutrux for aloha, bobby and rose
• 1975 Shot the last 10 days or so of Milos Forman s Academy Award-winning Best Picture One Flew Over the Cuckoo s Nest , after both Haskell Wexler and Bill Butler had worked on it
• 1976 Served as cinematographer for Reynolds feature directorial debut, Gator
• 1977 First collaboration with Steven Spielberg, shot additional scenes for Close Encounters of the Third Kind
• 1977 Received first Oscar nomination for Best Cinematography for work on Richard Brooks Looking for Mr. Goodbar
• 1978 Earned second Academy Award nomination for Heaven Can Wait , co-directed by Warren Beatty and Buck Henry
• 1978 Third film with Mutrux, American Hot Wax
• 1979 Received two Oscar nominations for Spielberg s 1941 for Best Visual Effects and Best Cinematography
• 1980 Fourth film with Mutrux, The Hollywood Knights
• 1981 Reunited with Reynolds for Sharkey s Machine
• 1981 Third feature directing project, The Legend of the Lone Ranger
• 1983 Earned another Oscar nomination for WarGames
• 1984 First film with director Charles Shyer, Irreconcilable Differences
• 1985 Second film as director of photography for Brooks, Fever Pitch
• 1985 Sixth and last Academy Award nomination to date, Murphy s Romance
• 1987 Reunited with Shyer on Baby Boom , starring Diane Keaton
• 1987 Was cinematographer on Hugh Wilson s Burglar
• 1989 Helmed The Dancer s Touch (ABC), the first of 12 TV-movies starring Reynolds as B L Stryker
• 1989 Reteamed with Yates on An Innocent Man
• 1990 Fifth film with Mutrux, There Goes My Baby (released in 1994)
• 1990 First film with director Andrew Bergman, The Freshman
• 1992 Reunited with Bergman for Honeymoon in Las Vegas
• 1993 Helmed an episode of Walker, Texas Ranger (CBS)
• 1993 Served as associate producer and cinematographer on Tombstone
• 1994 Served as director of photography on Sandra Locke s ABC movie Death in Small Doses ; Locke had acted in his A Reflection of Fear
• 1995 Third feature with Shyer for Father of the Bride Part II , starring Steve Martin and Diane Keaton
• 1996 Along with director John Frankenheimer, signed on for The Island of Dr Moreau a week into the scheduled production after the original director and cinematographer left due to creative differences with the studio
• 1997 Captured Las Vegas again for Vegas Vacation
• 1999 Honored by the American Society of Cinematographers with a lifetime achievement award
• 2000 Served as director of photography on William Friedkin s Rules of Engagement , starring Tommy Lee Jones and Samuel L Jackson, and Peter Chelsom s Town & Country , which reteamed him with Warren Beatty and Diane Keaton
• After becoming an operator, worked with fellow USC alum and cameraman Conrad Hall on the Western Stoney Burke (ABC, 1962-1963) and the sci-fi classic The Outer Limits (ABC, 1963-1965)
• Directed six episodes of Wiseguy (CBS)
• Found himself shut out of The Camera Guild after graduating from USC in 1950; worked as an editor at various television production companies; mustered non-union camera jobs by shooting inserts and stock footage on the fly
• Lost out on an opportunity to be director of photography on Bonnie and Clyde (1967) when Jack Warner said, Any cameraman that has not yet shot a picture is not going to shoot his first picture on my lot
• Raised by grandmother and aunt after his mother and father died; they told him he was going to be a cameraman, so from the time he was 14, he knew what he wanted to be
• Served in the Coast Guard during World War II, returning home in 1946
• Spent seven-and-a-half years working on The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet (ABC); credits director-star Ozzie Nelson with helping him rise from second assistant director to camera operator during this time
• Worked as director of photography with Hugh Wilson on the CBS series Frank s Place