Harry Stradling Sr.

Great-grandfather of Emmy-nominated songwriter and producer Kelly Brown (Port Charles (1997), Home James (2005)).

Towards the end of his career, he contributed to boosting Barbra Streisand's, particularly through his meticulous soft-focus photography of Hello, Dolly! (1969) and Funny Girl (1968).

Was fired from the production Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966) for attempting to "beautify" Elizabeth Taylor. He was replaced by Haskell Wexler just after filming began.

During his nine year-long tenure there, he earned four Academy Award nominations, culminating in a second Oscar for his much lauded 70 mm filming of My Fair Lady (1964).

In 1955, Harry went across to Warner Brothers.

For Republic, he imbued Nicholas Ray's off-beat Trucolor western Johnny Guitar (1954) with an immense visual style which adds to the almost lyrical quality of the picture.

Grandfather to Emmy award winning writer James H. Brown (Guiding Light (1952), Dynasty (1981), Port Charles (1997)).

Glamour and technicolour were also key ingredients in Stradling's musicals for MGM, foremost among them The Barkleys of Broadway (1949) and Guys and Dolls (1955).

Between 1942 and 1949, Harry worked at MGM, where his close-ups of the changing face of Hurd Hatfield, in The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945), further established him as one of the most versatile cinematographers in the business.

Smith (1941) and Suspicion (1941). Who can forget that indelible scene of Cary Grant ascending a staircase with that suspicious glass of warmed milk for poor Joan Fontaine (the contents of the glass rendered even more dubious by being lit from the inside with a light bulb)? The ever- innovative Stradling also impressed critics and audiences alike with his application of double exposure, creating realistic-looking twins of Douglas Fairbanks Jr.

for The Corsican Brothers (1941).

It ended up furthering Dietrich's career and led to other prestige assignments in England, including South Riding (1938), The Citadel (1938) and Alfred Hitchcock's Jamaica Inn (1939). With an impressive portfolio thus in hand, Stradling returned to Hollywood and soon worked with 'Hitch' again on Mr. & Mrs.

The visual quality of this film so impressed producer Alexander Korda, that he hired both Feyder and Stradling for his London Films production, Knight Without Armor (1937), starring Marlene Dietrich - hired by Korda for the then princely sum of $350,000. Despite budgetary constraints, which meant that many sets had be improvised and stylised, Stradling's low key lighting gave the film an impressionistic feel and made it look more 'expensive' than it was.

In 1930, he journeyed to France where he established a fruitful collaboration with the director Jacques Feyder, working on films which have become classics of French cinema: Le grand jeu (1934), La dame aux camélias (1934) and, his first noteworthy success, bringing to life the Flemish paintings of Carnival in Flanders (1935).

Multi-Academy Award-nominated cinematographer (13 in all), Harry Stradling was unique in that he established his reputation both in America and in Europe. He was the nephew of Mary Pickford's cameraman Walter Stradling, who provided the connections for his first job in Hollywood. Walter died in 1918 and Harry went on to serve his apprenticeship, working on B-movies and short subjects for lesser companies, like Pathe and Arrow.