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American cinematographer who spent the bulk of his career at Paramount (1923-1959). After two years apprenticed in the studio lab, Fapp first worked the movie camera as an assistant in 1925. By 1941, he had graduated to full director of photography at the behest of cinematographer, turned director, Ted Tetzlaff. Fapp joined the American Society of Cinematographers that same year. Though he was generally confined to shooting B-grade material, he was allowed to shine whenever bigger budgeted productions came his way. He did arguably his best work for the director Mitchell Leisen, who, as a former art director and costume designer,
American cinematographer who spent the bulk of his career at Paramount (1923-1959). After two years apprenticed in the studio lab, Fapp first worked the movie camera as an assistant in 1925. By 1941, he had graduated to full director of photography at the behest of cinematographer, turned director, Ted Tetzlaff. Fapp joined the American Society of Cinematographers that same year. Though he was generally confined to shooting B-grade material, he was allowed to shine whenever bigger budgeted productions came his way. He did arguably his best work for the director Mitchell Leisen, who, as a former art director and costume designer, had a famously keen eye for visual style.
Fapp excelled shooting Leisen's sumptuous-looking period romance Kitty (1945) (a true example of style trumping content). He was equally effective on another Leisen film, lensing Olivia de Havilland (as she aged in the course of three decades) in the superior tearjerker To Each His Own (1946). Other efforts in contrasting style: the noirish crime flic The Big Clock (1948) in stark, austere black & white; the vivid Technicolor frontier adventure The Far Horizons (1955), its stunning scenery expertly captured in Vista Vision (directed by another former cinematographer, Rudolph Maté); the frantic Billy Wilder farce One, Two, Three (1961); and West Side Story (1961), which finally won Fapp an Oscar (and a Golden Laurel Award) for Best Color Cinematography. After leaving Paramount in 1959, Fapp free-lanced for another decade and retired in 1969.
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United States