Robert Surtees

Testimony to his ageless endurance was being picked by director Peter Bogdanovich to shoot The Last Picture Show (1971).

Cinematographer for two Oscar Best Picture winners Ben-Hur (1959) and The Sting (1973), and seven other nominees: King Solomon's Mines (1950), Quo Vadis (1951), Mutiny on the Bounty (1962), Doctor Dolittle (1967), The Graduate (1967), The Last Picture Show (1971) and The Turning Point (1977).

This particularly suited big budget colour epics, like Quo Vadis (1951) and Ben-Hur (1959) (filmed in the large screen Camera 65 process with anamorphic lenses, which greatly enhanced colour definition and sharpness); expansive outdoor musicals like Oklahoma! (1955) (the first picture shot in 70 mm Todd-AO ultra wide- screen format); or lush, romantic period drama like Raintree County (1957). Forever at the cutting edge of technological innovation, Surtees was an extremely versatile craftsman.

He excelled at every genre and photographic process, superb at shooting sweeping scenery (for example, his Technicolor lensing of King Solomon's Mines (1950)on location in Africa), or bringing the best out of his close-ups. An undoubted high point in his career would have to be the 9-minute chariot race from "Ben-Hur".

Surtees received the first of his 16 Oscar nominations for Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (1944) (when the studio system was at its peak), and his last - some 33 years later - for The Turning Point (1977).

He settled at MGM in 1943 (remaining under contract until 1962), and soon developed a reputation as one of Hollywood's foremost lighting cameramen. In keeping with the glamorous, lavish look of MGM product of the time, Surtees typically employed high-key lighting.

Between 1929 and 1930, he was seconded to the Universal studios in Berlin, subsequently spending the remainder of the decade at First National, Warner Brothers and Pathe.

Robert L. Surtees began his working life as a portrait photographer and retoucher, before becoming camera assistant at Universal in 1927. He spent a lengthy apprenticeship (15 years) working under such experienced cinematographers as Hal Mohr, Joseph Ruttenberg and Gregg Toland.