William H. Daniels ASC (December 1, 1901 – June 14, 1970) was a film cinematographer who was best-known as actress Greta Garbo's personal lensman. Daniels served as the cinematographer on all but three of Garbo's films during her tenure at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, including Torrent (1926), The Mysterious Lady (1928), The Kiss (1929), Anna Christie (1930), Grand Hotel (1932), Queen Christina (1933), Anna Karenina (1935), Camille (1936) and Ninotchka (1939). Early in his career, Daniels worked regularly with director Erich von Stroheim, providing cinematography for such films as The Devil's Pass Key (1920) and Greed (1924). Daniels went on to win an Academy Award for Best Cinematography for his work on The Naked City (1948).
Daniels was born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1901. He completed his higher education at the University of Southern California (USC).
His career as a cinematographer extended fifty years from the silent film Foolish Wives (1922) to Move (1970), although he was an uncredited camera operator on two earlier films (1919 and 1920). His major films included The Naked City (1948), filmed on the streets of New York, for which he won an Academy Award for Best Cinematography. He also was associate producer of a few films in the 1960s and was President of American Society of Cinematographers (1961âÂÂ63).
By 1918 he was promoted to a first camera operator at Universal Pictures. There he initially worked in an uncredited capacity, including the shooting of Erich von StroheimâÂÂs debut film, Blind Husbands (1919).
Daniels provided the photography for director von StroheimâÂÂs most iconic Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer productions of the 1920s, among them Foolish Wives (1922), Greed (1925), and The Merry Widow (1925).
Von StroheimâÂÂs Greed involved six weeks of shooting in Death Valley in July and August 1925, with the entire cast and crew on site. Daniel endured the heat and lack of amenities without complaint. Photographically, his greatest challenge shooting Greed was integrating transitions from natural outdoor lighting with illuminated interiors that von Stroheim demanded in the famous marriage sequence shot in San Francisco: âÂÂ[B]alancing the exposure was hellâ Daniels recalled. He registered dismay with the directorâÂÂs obsession for âÂÂrealismâ requiring that an underground mining sequence be shot in an actual shaft at a depth 3000 feet (915 meters), rather than near the surface, either of which would have produced the same visual effect. Daniels ended his association with von Stroheim after completing The Merry Widow in 1925.
When the 19-year-old Swedish actress Greta Garbo first arrived under contract at MGM studios in 1924, Daniels was enlisted to conduct her screen tests, specifically close-ups. He recalled that âÂÂshe didn't speak a word of English and was terrifically shy.â After completing this essential, but painstaking âÂÂordeal,â Daniels insisted that Garbo would henceforth work exclusively on closed sets (director and crew only present), in an effort to ease the young actresses âÂÂconstant stage frightâ and allowing her to focus on performing.
Daniels acted as cinematographer on 16 pictures starring Garbo, the first The Temptress (1926) and the last Camille (1936).
In the famous sequence in Queen Christina (1933), in which Garbo âÂÂmemorizesâ the features of the bedroom where she has made love with Antonio (John Gilbert), Daniels credits von StroheimâÂÂs influence for its success: âÂÂI think I learned the realism in this scene, the way of achieving it, from von Stroheim.â he died in Los Angeles in 1970
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