Alvin Wyckoff
actor, camera_department, cinematographer
- Born:
- 1877-07-03, New York, USA
- Died:
- 1957-07-30, Los Angeles, California, USA
- Professions:
- actor, camera_department, cinematographer
Biography
Born on a sweltering 3 July 1877 in the electric chaos of New York City, Alvin Wyckoff trained his eye to catch light the way a prospector spots gold flecks in a stream. Behind the camera he gave silhouette and shadow to Rose of the Rancho (1914), then—decades later—steered jungle searchlights through The Lost Jungle (1934) and charted tropical temptations on She-devil Island (1936). Between shoots he stepped briefly in front of the lens, proving he could act as fluently as he framed a scene. Life off-set paired him with two leading ladies in turn: Alice Olivia Johannson and, later, Jessie Wyckoff. On 30 July 1957 the California sun set over Los Angeles for the last time for Wyckoff, closing the curtain on a career that had helped write the grammar of moving pictures.
