Charles G. Clarke

Charles Galloway Clarke
Born	10 March 1899(1899-03-10) Potter Valley, California
Died	1 July 1983(1983-07-01) (aged 84) Beverly Hills, California
Occupation	Cinematographer
Years active	1920–1960s

Charles G. Clarke ASC (19 March 1899 – 1 July 1983) an American cinematographer who worked in Hollywood for over 40 years and was treasurer and president (twice - 1948-50 and 1951-53) of the American Society of Cinematographers.

Career

Clarke started his career as an assistant cameraman to Allen Siegler at Universal Pictures in 1915. After serving overseas with the US Army during World War I, he returned to work as as assistant cameraman with the National Film Company and Oliver Morosco Company.

Subsequently promoted to cinematographer on the 15-part silent serial The Son of Tarzan (1920), he worked across a broad spectrum of film, including standard movie serials at the independents, to showcase musicals and major-studio epics. From 1927 to 1933 he was first cameraman at the Jesse Lasky Company.

He was responsible for all of the China location footage and much of the studio work for MGM's The Good Earth (1937) but was uncredited. After working on a number of movies for Fox Films in the 1930s, he moved MGM. In 1938 he returned to the now 20th Century-Fox and worked the majority of his subsequent career at the studio.

He worked on low-budget Mr. Moto and Charley Chan pictures to helped produce propaganda material such as Guadalcanal Diary (1943) to pictures Thunderhead, Son of Flicka (1945) and Miracle on 34th Street (1947)) to big CinemaScope musicals Marching Along (1952).

He was married to Marian Bowden and died at his home in Beverly Hills, California, in 1983.

Teacher

Whilst on the shoot for Marines, Let's Go in Japan, Clarke suffered a minor heart attack and retired from work. However, former friend and Fox producer Kenneth Macgowan persuaded Clarke to join the Theater Arts Department at UCLA Clarke taught film school and wrote a book called Professional Cinematography at the urging of his students in 1964. In 1976 he published Early Film Making in Los Angeles which recounted his time during the early years of Hollywood and how the technology of cinematography changed.

Selected filmography

• The Half Breed (1922)
• Salomy Jane (The Law of the Sierras) (1923)
• The Top of the World (1924)
• Without Mercy (1925)
• Singed (1927)
• Upstream (1927)
• Sharp Shooters (1928)
• Riley the Cop (1928)
• Words and Music (1929)
• The Veiled Woman (1929)
• Oh, For a Man! (1930)
• Girls Demand Excitement (1931)
• Second Hand Wife (The Illegal Divorce) (1932)
• Hot Pepper (1933)
• The Cat and the Fiddle (1934)
• Tarzan and His Mate (1934)
• Viva Villa! (1934)
• The Winning Ticket (1935)
• The Casino Murder Case (1935)
• Woman Wanted (1935)
• The Perfect Gentleman (1935)
• The Garden Murder Case (1936)
• Every Sunday (1936)
• The Thirteenth Chair (1937)
• Charlie Chan in Honolulu (1938)
• Pardon Our Nerve (1939)
• Frontier Marshal (1939)
• The Return of the Cisco Kid (1939)
• Mr. Moto Takes a Vacation (1939)
• Viva Cisco Kid (1940)
• Street of Memories (1940)
• Romance of the Rio Grande (1941)
• Dead Men Tell (1941)
• The Cowboy and the Blonde (1941)
• The Bride Wore Crutches (1941)
• Moontide (1942)
• A Gentleman at Heart (1942)
• Time to Kill (1942)
• Hello, Frisco, Hello (1943)
• Guadalcanal Diary (1943)
• Thunderhead, Son of Flicka (1945)
• Smokey (1946)
• Miracle on 34th Street (1947)
• Captain from Castile (1947)
• That Wonderful Urge (1948)
• The Iron Curtain (1948)
• Green Grass of Wyoming (1948)
• Slattery's Hurricane (1949)
• I'll Get By (1950)
• The Big Lift (1950)
• Golden Girl (1951)
• Red Skies of Montana (1952)
• Kangaroo (1952)
• Marching Along (1952)
• Stars and Stripes Forever (1952)
• City of Bad Men (1953)
• Destination Gobi (1953)
• Night People (1954)
• Suddenly (1954)
• Black Widow (1954)
• Prince of Players (1955)
• Violent Saturday (1955)
• The Virgin Queen (1955)
• The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit (1956)
• Carousel (1956)
• Stopover Tokyo (1957)
• The Wayward Bus (1957)
• The Barbarian and the Geisha (1958)
• The Hunters (1958)
• These Thousand Hills (1959)
• Holiday for Lovers (1959)
• The Sound and the Fury (1959)
• Flaming Star (1960)
• Return to Peyton Place (1961)
• Madison Avenue (1961)

External links

• American Society of Cinematographers
• Cinematography.com
• International Cinematographers Guild

References

Persondata
Name	Clarke, Charles Galloway
Alternative names
Short description	American cinematographer
Date of birth	19 March 1899
Place of birth	Potter Valley, California
Date of death	1 July 1983
Place of death	Beverly Hills, California