George J. Folsey
Encyclopedia
George J. Folsey, A.S.C.
(July 2, 1898 – November 1, 1988) was an American cinematographer
who worked on 162 films between 1919 and his retirement in 1976.
Born George Joseph Folsey in Brooklyn
, he was hired by Jesse Louis Lasky to work as an office boy in his newly formed Jesse L. Lasky Feature Play Company in New York City
. He earned his first screen credit for His Bridal Night in 1919. Leading lady Alice Brady
was so satisfied with the way he photographed her she offered him a contract to shoot all her films. He worked for both Associated First National
and Paramount Astoria Studios
before relocating to Hollywood and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
, where he spent the bulk of his career.
Folsey's many credits include The Letter
, The Cocoanuts
, Animal Crackers
, The Great Ziegfeld
, A Guy Named Joe
, The White Cliffs of Dover
, Meet Me in St. Louis
, The Clock
, The Harvey Girls
, Adam's Rib
, A Life of Her Own
, Million Dollar Mermaid
, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, The Cobweb
, Cash McCall
, and The Balcony
. For television
he served as director of photography for various episodes of the ABC
series The Fugitive
and an NBC
special starring figure skater Peggy Fleming
, for which he won an Emmy Award for Best Cinematography For Nonfiction Programming
.
Folsey was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Cinematography
thirteen times but never won. Eight months before his death he was honored with the first Lifetime Achievement Award presented by the American Society of Cinematographers
, for which he served as President in 1956-57.
Folsey's son George, Jr.
is a director/producer/editor who has worked on such films as The Three Amigos
and the remakes of Cheaper by the Dozen
and The Pink Panther
.
Folsey died in Santa Monica, California
.
American Society of Cinematographers
The American Society of Cinematographers is an educational, cultural, and professional organization. It is not a labor union, and it is not a guild. Membership is by invitation and is extended only to directors of photography and special effects experts with distinguished credits in the film...
(July 2, 1898 – November 1, 1988) was an American cinematographer
Cinematographer
A cinematographer is one photographing with a motion picture camera . The title is generally equivalent to director of photography , used to designate a chief over the camera and lighting crews working on a film, responsible for achieving artistic and technical decisions related to the image...
who worked on 162 films between 1919 and his retirement in 1976.
Born George Joseph Folsey in Brooklyn
Brooklyn
Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City's five boroughs, with nearly 2.6 million residents, and the second-largest in area. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, which is now the most populous county in New York State and the second-most densely populated...
, he was hired by Jesse Louis Lasky to work as an office boy in his newly formed Jesse L. Lasky Feature Play Company in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. He earned his first screen credit for His Bridal Night in 1919. Leading lady Alice Brady
Alice Brady
Alice Brady was an American actress who began her career in the silent film era and survived the transition into talkies. She worked up until six months before her death from cancer in 1939...
was so satisfied with the way he photographed her she offered him a contract to shoot all her films. He worked for both Associated First National
First National
First National was an association of independent theater owners in the United States that expanded from exhibiting movies to distributing them, and eventually to producing them as a movie studio, called First National Pictures, Inc. It later merged with Warner Bros.-Early history:The First National...
and Paramount Astoria Studios
Kaufman Astoria Studios
The Kaufman Astoria Studios is an historic movie studio located in the Astoria section of the New York City borough of Queens.-History:It was originally built by Famous Players-Lasky in 1920 to provide the company with a facility close to the Broadway theater district. Many features and short...
before relocating to Hollywood and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. is an American media company, involved primarily in the production and distribution of films and television programs. MGM was founded in 1924 when the entertainment entrepreneur Marcus Loew gained control of Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures Corporation and Louis B. Mayer...
, where he spent the bulk of his career.
Folsey's many credits include The Letter
The Letter (1929 film)
The Letter is an American drama film which was made in both silent and talking versions by Paramount Pictures.-Preservation status:...
, The Cocoanuts
The Cocoanuts
The Cocoanuts is the first feature-length Marx Brothers film, produced by Paramount Pictures. The musical comedy stars the four Marx Brothers, Oscar Shaw, Mary Eaton, and Margaret Dumont. Produced by Walter Wanger and the first sound movie to credit more than one director , and was adapted to the...
, Animal Crackers
Animal Crackers (film)
Animal Crackers is a 1930 American comedy film, in which mayhem and zaniness ensue when a valuable painting goes missing during a party in honor of famed African explorer Captain Spaulding. The film was both a critical and commercial success upon initial release, and remains one of the Marx...
, The Great Ziegfeld
The Great Ziegfeld
The Great Ziegfeld is a 1936 musical film produced by MGM. A fictionalized biography of Florenz Ziegfeld from his show business beginnings to his death, it showcases a series of spectacular musical productions. The film includes original music by Walter Donaldson and Irving Berlin...
, A Guy Named Joe
A Guy Named Joe
A Guy Named Joe is a 1943 film made by MGM, directed by Victor Fleming, produced by Everett Riskin, from a screenplay by Dalton Trumbo, adapted by Frederick Hazlitt Brennan from a story by Chandler Sprague and David Boehm. It starred Spencer Tracy, Irene Dunne and Van Johnson, with Esther Williams...
, The White Cliffs of Dover
The White Cliffs of Dover (1944 film)
The White Cliffs of Dover is a 1944 film made by Loew's and MGM. It was directed by Clarence Brown and produced by Clarence Brown and Sidney Franklin. The screenplay was by Claudine West, Jan Lustig and George Froeschel, based on the Alice Duer Miller poem titled The White Cliffs with additional...
, Meet Me in St. Louis
Meet Me in St. Louis
Meet Me in St. Louis is a 1944 musical film from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer which tells the story of an American family living in St. Louis at the time of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition World's Fair in 1904...
, The Clock
The Clock (film)
The Clock is a 1945 film starring Judy Garland and Robert Walker and directed by Garland's future husband, Vincente Minnelli. This was Garland's first dramatic role as well as her first starring vehicle in which she did not sing.-Plot:...
, The Harvey Girls
The Harvey Girls
The Harvey Girls is a 1946 MGM musical film based on a 1942 novel by Samuel Hopkins Adams about Fred Harvey's famous Harvey House restaurants. Directed by George Sidney, the film stars Judy Garland, John Hodiak, Angela Lansbury, Virginia O'Brien, Ray Bolger, and Marjorie Main...
, Adam's Rib
Adam's Rib
Adam's Rib is a 1949 American film written by Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin and directed by George Cukor. It stars Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn as married lawyers who come to oppose each other in court. Judy Holliday co-stars in her first substantial film role...
, A Life of Her Own
A Life of Her Own
A Life of Her Own is a 1950 American melodrama film directed by George Cukor. The screenplay by Isobel Lennart focuses on an aspiring model who leaves her small town in the Midwest to seek fame and fortune in New York City.-Plot:...
, Million Dollar Mermaid
Million Dollar Mermaid
Million Dollar Mermaid is a 1952 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer biographical musical film of the life of Australian swimming star Annette Kellerman. It was directed by Mervyn LeRoy and produced by Arthur Hornblow Jr. from a screenplay by Everett Freeman. The music score was by Adolph Deutsch, the...
, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, The Cobweb
The Cobweb (film)
The Cobweb is a MGM film. It was directed by Vincente Minnelli and based on a novel by William Gibson. It was released on DVD as part of the Warner Archive Collection on January 18, 2011....
, Cash McCall
Cash McCall
Cash McCall is a 1960 movie starring James Garner and Natalie Wood, based upon the novel of the same name by Cameron Hawley about a man who buys businesses in order to sell them at a profit...
, and The Balcony
The Balcony (film)
The Balcony is a 1963 cinematic adaptation of Jean Genet's play The Balcony, directed by Joseph Strick. It starred Shelley Winters, Peter Falk, Lee Grant and Leonard Nimoy. George J. Folsey was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Cinematography. Ben Maddow was nominated for a Writers Guild of...
. For television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
he served as director of photography for various episodes of the ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
series The Fugitive
The Fugitive (TV series)
The Fugitive is an American drama series produced by QM Productions and United Artists Television that aired on ABC from 1963 to 1967. David Janssen stars as Richard Kimble, a doctor from the fictional town of Stafford, Indiana, who is falsely convicted of his wife's murder and given the death...
and an NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
special starring figure skater Peggy Fleming
Peggy Fleming
Peggy Gail Fleming is an American figure skater. She is the 1968 Olympic Champion in Ladies' singles and a three-time World Champion...
, for which he won an Emmy Award for Best Cinematography For Nonfiction Programming
Primetime Emmy Award
The Primetime Emmy Awards are awards presented by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences in recognition of excellence in American primetime television programming...
.
Folsey was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Cinematography
Academy Award for Best Cinematography
The Academy Award for Best Cinematography is an Academy Award awarded each year to a cinematographer for work in one particular motion picture.-History:...
thirteen times but never won. Eight months before his death he was honored with the first Lifetime Achievement Award presented by the American Society of Cinematographers
American Society of Cinematographers
The American Society of Cinematographers is an educational, cultural, and professional organization. It is not a labor union, and it is not a guild. Membership is by invitation and is extended only to directors of photography and special effects experts with distinguished credits in the film...
, for which he served as President in 1956-57.
Folsey's son George, Jr.
George Folsey, Jr.
George J. Folsey, Jr. is an American film producer, editor, assistant director and cinematographer who frequently worked with director John Landis in the 1980s. He also edited the movie, "Hot Tub Time Machine" Folsey was acquitted in a manslaughter case brought over the deaths of actor Vic Morrow...
is a director/producer/editor who has worked on such films as The Three Amigos
The Three Amigos
The Three Amigos may refer to*Three Amigos an American comedy film starring Chevy Chase, Steve Martin, and Martin Short*The Three Amigos a UK band...
and the remakes of Cheaper by the Dozen
Cheaper by the Dozen (2003 film)
Cheaper by the Dozen is a 2003 American comedy film about a family with 12 children . The film takes its title from the 1948 biography of the same name of Frank Bunker Gilbreth and Lillian Moller Gilbreth and their 12 children, but other than the title and the concept of a family with 12 children,...
and The Pink Panther
The Pink Panther (2006 film)
The Pink Panther is a 2006 American comedy film and a reboot of The Pink Panther film series. In this film, Inspector Jacques Clouseau is assigned to solve the murder of a famous soccer coach and the theft of the famous Pink Panther diamond. The film also stars Kevin Kline, Jean Reno, Emily...
.
Folsey died in Santa Monica, California
Santa Monica, California
Santa Monica is a beachfront city in western Los Angeles County, California, US. Situated on Santa Monica Bay, it is surrounded on three sides by the city of Los Angeles — Pacific Palisades on the northwest, Brentwood on the north, West Los Angeles on the northeast, Mar Vista on the east, and...
.