Joseph Biroc
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Joseph Biroc | |
|---|---|
| Born | Joseph Francis Biroc February 12, 1903 New York City, New York, U.S. |
| Died | September 7, 1996 (aged 93) |
| Occupation | Cinematographer |
| Years active | 1927–1989 |
| Awards | See below |
Joseph Francis Biroc, ASC (February 12, 1903 – September 7, 1996) was an American cinematographer. Born in New York City, he entered the film industry in 1918 as a laboratory technician in Fort Lee, New Jersey, and moved to Los Angeles in 1927, where he worked as a camera operator at RKO Pictures. During World War II he served in the U.S. Army Signal Corps, filming the Liberation of Paris in August 1944.[citation needed] He later worked as a freelance cinematographer at various studios and frequently collaborated with the director Robert Aldrich.
In addition to his film work, which included It's a Wonderful Life (1946) and The Flight of the Phoenix (1965), Biroc worked on various television series, including Adventures of Superman.
Biroc won the Academy Award for Best Cinematography for The Towering Inferno (1974), which he shared with Fred J. Koenekamp, having previously been nominated for Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964). He also won two Primetime Emmy Awards, one for the television film Brian's Song and one for the series Casablanca.[1] In 1988, he received the American Society of Cinematographers' Lifetime Achievement Award for his body of work.[2][failed verification]
Early life
[edit]Joseph Francis Biroc was born on February 12, 1903, in New York City.[3] He developed a passion for film in childhood.[4] He recalled seeing his first film in 1910 on a vacant lot five blocks from his home, and said he knew from then that he wanted to spend his life making movies.[5]
Career
[edit]Early work and RKO
[edit]At the age of fifteen, with his uncle's help, Biroc began his career as a film laboratory technician with Paragon Labs in Fort Lee, New Jersey, in 1918. The apprenticeship began a series of jobs at various laboratories, which was then a standard route for aspiring cinematographers.[6]
He worked at Craftsman Labs in New York from 1920 to 1923, then briefly for Goldwyn Pictures in Culver City, California, in 1923. He then returned to New York and took a job as a film printer for Famous Players–Lasky, where he was soon promoted to assistant cameraman. After Famous Players–Lasky shut down in 1927, Biroc moved to Los Angeles to work for United Artists, before moving to RKO as a camera operator. At RKO he served as an assistant to the cinematographers Leo Tover, Robert De Grasse and Edward Cronjager, and worked on films including Cimarron (1931), Sylvia Scarlett (1935), A Woman Rebels (1936), Swing Time (1936), Shall We Dance (1937) and Five Came Back (1939), though he received no screen credit, as RKO rarely credited camera operators.[4] His last work before World War II was Bombardier (1943).
World War II
[edit]In 1943, Biroc became a motion picture cameraman in the U.S. Army Signal Corps. He filmed the Liberation of Paris in August 1944.[citation needed] In 1945 he filmed conditions at the Dachau concentration camp in Germany while attached to George Stevens's Special Motion Picture Coverage Unit. He rose to the rank of captain and later major.[citation needed]
Postwar film and television work
[edit]Biroc received his first screen credit as a cinematographer on It's a Wonderful Life (1946), on which he worked alongside the cinematographer Joseph Walker.[4] He was later the cinematographer on Bwana Devil (1952), described as the first American feature-length colour film shot in 3-D.[7]
In 1952, Biroc began his association with the producer-director Robert Aldrich, starting with an episode of The Doctor and continuing with films such as World for Ransom (1954), Attack (1956), Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964), for which he received his first Oscar nomination, The Flight of the Phoenix (1965) and The Longest Yard (1974). He also shot material for network television early on, including musical shorts featuring Duke Ellington, Nat King Cole and Louis Armstrong, which was unusual for cameramen at the time.[4] For much of the 1950s he worked mainly in television, in both black and white and colour, and he ended his career in the 1970s and 1980s working on television films, specials and miniseries.[citation needed]
Biroc wrote several articles on his working methods for American Cinematographer, including accounts of shooting the miniseries Washington: Behind Closed Doors (1977), in which sets were built with full ceilings so that they would resemble real locations,[8] and of his work with the director Wim Wenders on Hammett (1982), where he described his approach as basic lighting and photography in the manner of earlier decades.[9]
Death
[edit]Biroc died on September 7, 1996, in Woodland Hills, California, aged 93. He was survived by a sister, Agnes Kronmeyer of Cranford, New Jersey, and four grandchildren.[5]
Filmography
[edit]Film
[edit]Television
[edit]| Year | Title | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 1950 | Dick Tracy | 5 episodes |
| 1952 | China Smith | Episode: "Straight Settlement" |
| Four Star Playhouse | Episode: "The Officer and the Lady" | |
| 1953 | I'm the Law | 14 episodes |
| 1954 | The Mickey Rooney Show | 5 episodes |
| Dear Phoebe | Episode: "The Christmas Show" | |
| The Lone Wolf | 3 episodes | |
| Police Call | Episode: "Montreal" | |
| 1954-55 | Treasury Men in Action | 12 episodes |
| 1955 | The Man Behind the Badge | Episode: "The Case of the Hunted Hobo" |
| My Friend Flicka | Episode: "The Stranger" | |
| Screen Directors Playhouse | Episode: "The Final Tribute" | |
| 1955-56 | TV Reader's Digest | 3 episodes |
| 1956 | General Electric Summer Originals | Episode: "It's Sunny Again" |
| 1956-58 | Adventures of Superman | 26 episodes |
| 1957 | General Electric Theater | Episode: "Mr. Kensington's Finest Hour" |
| Alfred Hitchcock Presents | Episode: "Silent Witness" | |
| 1957-58 | Playhouse 90 | 3 episodes |
| 1958 | The Thin Man | Episode: "Unlucky Lucky Numbers" |
| Hey, Jeannie! | Episode: "The Landlord" | |
| Alcoa Theatre | 2 episodes | |
| 1959 | Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theatre | Episode: "Checkmate" |
| Richard Diamond, Private Detective | 4 episodes | |
| The David Niven Show | Episode: "The Twist of the Key" | |
| The Detectives | Episode: "The Streger Affair" | |
| 1959-60 | Hotel de Paree | 2 episodes |
| 1960 | The DuPont Show with June Allyson | Episode: "Escape" |
| Goodyear Theatre | Episode: "Author at Work" | |
| 1960-61 | Checkmate | 3 episodes |
| 1962-63 | Empire | 4 episodes |
| 1964 | The Man from U.N.C.L.E. | Episode: "The Vulcan Affair" |
| 1972 | Ghost Story | Episode: "The New House" |
| 1983 | Casablanca | 5 episodes |
| 1985 | Hell Town | Episode: "Father of Hell Town" |
Television films and miniseries
[edit]| Year | Title | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 1956 | Cavalry Patrol | Failed pilot |
| 1958 | The Adventures of Superpup | |
| 1971 | Brian's Song | |
| 1972 | Gidget Gets Married | |
| Playmates | ||
| The Crooked Hearts | ||
| 1974 | Wonder Woman | Failed pilot |
| Honky Tonk | ||
| Thursday's Game | ||
| 1976 | The Moneychangers | |
| 1977 | Washington: Behind Closed Doors | |
| 1977 | SST: Death Flight | |
| 1978 | A Family Upside Down | |
| Little Women | ||
| The Clone Master | ||
| 1980 | Kenny Rogers as The Gambler | |
| Scruples | ||
| 1982 | Desperate Lives | |
| 1984 | The Jerk, Too | |
| 1985 | A Death in California | |
| 1986 | Outrage! | |
| A Winner Never Quits | ||
| 1987 | Time Out for Dad |
Refs:[3]
Awards and nominations
[edit]| Institution | Year | Category | Work | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Academy Awards | 1965 | Best Cinematography (Black & White) | Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte | Nominated | [10] |
| 1975 | Best Cinematography | The Towering Inferno | Won | [11] | |
| American Society of Cinematographers | 1988 | Lifetime Achievement Award | N/a | Won | [2][failed verification] |
| Primetime Emmy Awards | 1972 | Outstanding Cinematography for a Movie Made for Television | Brian's Song | Won | [1] |
| 1977 | Outstanding Cinematography for a Series | The Moneychangers ("Part 1") | Nominated | ||
| 1978 | Outstanding Cinematography for a Movie Made for Television | A Family Upside Down | Nominated | ||
| Outstanding Cinematography for a Series | Washington: Behind Closed Doors ("Part 1") | Nominated | |||
| 1979 | Little Women ("Part 2") | Nominated | |||
| 1980 | Outstanding Cinematography for Limited Series or Movie | Kenny Rogers as The Gambler | Nominated | ||
| 1983 | Outstanding Cinematography for a Series | Casablanca ("The Masterbuilder's Woman") | Won | ||
| 1985 | Outstanding Cinematography for Limited Series or Movie | A Death in California | Nominated | ||
| Society of Camera Operators | 1986 | Lifetime Achievement Award | N/a | Won | [12] |
Bibliography and further reading
[edit]- Biroc, Joseph. "Hollywood Launches 3-D Production". American Cinematographer (Hollywood), August 1952.
- Biroc, Joseph. "Photographing Washington: Behind Closed Doors". American Cinematographer (Hollywood), November 1977.
- American Cinematographer (Hollywood), July 1981.
- Focus on Film (London), no. 13, 1973.
- Patterson, R. "On Hammett". American Cinematographer (Hollywood), November 1982.
- Basinger, Jeanine. The It's a Wonderful Life Book. 1987.
- American Cinematographer (Hollywood), March 1989.
- Obituary. American Cinematographer (Hollywood), November 1996.
- Obituary. Cinefantastique (Forest Park), vol. 28, no. 6, 1996.
References
[edit]- 1 2 "Joseph Biroc". Television Academy. Retrieved 2026-02-12.
- 1 2 "Index to Motion Picture Credits - Joseph Biroc". Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Archived from the original on 2016-11-27. Retrieved 23 November 2016.
- 1 2 "JOSEPH F. BIROC". www.cinematographers.nl. Retrieved 2016-11-29.
- 1 2 3 4 "Special Collections". Margaret Herrick Library. Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences. Archived from the original on October 2, 2014. Retrieved 2016-11-29.
- 1 2 "In Memoriam: Joseph Biroc". American Cinematographer: 112. 1996.
- ↑ "Joseph F. Biroc, ASC (1903-1996)". www.afcinema.com. Retrieved 2016-11-29.
- ↑ "Hollywood Launches 3-D Film Production". American Cinematographer: 336–340. 1952.
- ↑ "Photographing Washington: Behind Closed Doors". American Cinematographer. 1977.
- ↑ "Classic Lighting for Hammett". American Cinematographer: 1168–1169. 1982.
- ↑ "The 37th Academy Awards | 1965". www.oscars.org. 2014-10-05. Retrieved 2026-06-10.
- ↑ "The 47th Academy Awards | 1975". www.oscars.org. 2014-10-06. Retrieved 2026-06-10.
- ↑ "PAST SOC LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARDS | SOC Awards". Retrieved 2026-02-12.
External links
[edit]- Joseph Biroc at IMDb
- Joseph Biroc papers, Margaret Herrick Library, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
- Biography/film work
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