Bert Glennon
actor, cinematographer, director
- Birth name:
- Robert Lawrence Glennon
- Born:
- 1893-11-19, Anaconda, Montana, USA
- Died:
- 1967-06-29, Sherman Oaks, California, USA
- Professions:
- actor, cinematographer, director
Biography
In 1912, a Stanford undergraduate named Bert Glennon traded lecture halls for darkrooms when a studio hired him as an assistant cameraman; the part-time job turned into a lifelong obsession the moment he tossed his mortarboard. By 1916 he was behind the lens as a director of photography, and for the next five decades his lighting schemes and sweeping camera moves became the unspoken language of directors like John Ford and Cecil B. DeMille, both notorious sticklers who trusted few eyes but his. Glennon briefly stepped into the director’s chair between 1928 and 1932, but the resulting pictures slid from promising to forgettable; he shrugged, handed the megaphone back, and returned to the camera where his genius flourished until he quietly packed away his light meter in 1963.
