Jack Cardiff

About Jack Cardiff

Who is it?: Cinematographer, Film Director
Birth Day: September 18, 1914
Birth Place: Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, UK, British
Died On: 22 April 2009(2009-04-22) (aged 94)\nEly, Cambridgeshire, UK
Birth Sign: Libra
Occupation: Actor, cinematographer, director, photographer
Years active: 1918–2007

Jack Cardiff Net Worth

Jack Cardiff was born on September 18, 1914 in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, UK, British, is Cinematographer, Film Director. Jack Cardiff was a British cinematographer and director who took British cinema to new heights with his mastery of the Technicolor technology. He worked for the production company run by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger to make movies which broke the shackles of European expressionism and American spectaculars and took British films to a new level of fantasy and romance. He had a huge gift for narrating a story in colors and used the red color to produce the maximum impact. This was evident from the close-ups of red dresses, red lipstick and red ballet shoes used by the female leads in many of his films. He found the eroticism in the most improbable places and used close-ups of moist lips and burning eyes to produce passionate depths even in demure actresses. He became famous while working for Powell and Pressburger’s production company which helped him work with great directors of the time. He was famous for making the actresses in his films look more beautiful with clever use of his camera and various colors. It was said that Jack Cardiff could paint the movies with different colors of his choice.
Jack Cardiff is a member of Film & Theater Personalities

💰Jack Cardiff Net worth: $950,000

Some Jack Cardiff images

Biography/Timeline

1918

He worked as an actor from an early age, both in the music hall and in a number of silent films: My Son, My Son (1918), Billy's Rose (1922), The Loves of Mary, Queen of Scots (1923) and Tiptoes (1927). At 15, he began working as a camera assistant, clapper boy and production Runner for British International Pictures, including Hitchcock's The Skin Game (1931).

1935

Jack Cardiff was the camera operator and then Cinematographer for 73 films, documentaries and TV series between 1935 and 2007. These are some of the main films:

1943

The turning point in his career was as a 2nd unit cameraman on Powell & Pressburger's The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943); they were sufficiently impressed to hire Cardiff as Cinematographer on their post-war Technicolor A Matter of Life and Death (1946). Their collaboration continued with Black Narcissus (1947), which won Cardiff an Oscar and a Golden Globe, and The Red Shoes (1948). These films put Cardiff's talents in high demand, and a string of big-budget films followed.

1950

In the late 1950s Cardiff began to direct, with two modest successes in Intent to Kill (1958) and Web of Evidence (1959). His version of D. H. Lawrence's novel Sons and Lovers (1960), starring Trevor Howard, Wendy Hiller and Dean Stockwell, was a hit, critically and at the box-office. It received seven Oscar nominations (including a Best Director nomination for Cardiff) and Freddie Francis won for Best Black-and-White Cinematography. Cardiff received a Golden Globe Award for Best Director.

1960

After concentrating on direction in the 1960s, he returned to cinematography in the 1970s and 1980s, working on mainstream commercial films in the United States. One of the last films Cardiff photographed was at Pinewood Studios in 2004 when he lit veteran actor Sir John Mills in a short entitled Lights 2 (dir. Marcus Dillistone). The combined age of leading actor and Cinematographer was a record 186 years. A feature-length documentary was made about Cardiff's life and career, Cameraman: The Life and Work of Jack Cardiff (2010) by Craig McCall.

1995

In 1995, the British Society of Cinematographers conferred a lifetime achievement award on Cardiff.

2000

In 2000 he was awarded an OBE and in 2001 he was awarded an Honorary Oscar for his contribution to the cinema.

2009

Cardiff died on 22 April 2009, aged 94, the same day as Ken Annakin, with whom he had worked on The Fifth Musketeer (1979). He was survived by his wife and his four sons.

2010

It took 17 years to make but wasn't completed or released until after Cardiff had died. As well as many interviews with Cardiff, it included tributes from Mills, Martin Scorsese, Thelma Schoonmaker, Kathleen Byron, Kim Hunter, Moira Shearer, Lauren Bacall, Charlton Heston and Kirk Douglas. It was selected for the official selection of Cannes Classics at the Festival de Cannes in 2010, as well as four other important film festivals that year.

2014

Cameraman: The Life and Work of Jack Cardiff was shown as part of the Great Yarmouth Arts Festival 2014 along with some of his photographs, often taken as preliminaries to lighting the films. Further celebrations to mark his birth date took place in September – particularly at the Time and Tide Museum in Great Yarmouth.