- Ernest B. Schoedsack
Ernest Beaumont Schoedsack (
June 8 ,1893 -December 23 ,1979 ) was an Americanmotion picture cinematographer , director, and producer.Born in
Council Bluffs, Iowa , Schoedsack is probably best remembered for being the co-director of the 1933 film, "King Kong".Schoedsack was fascinated with the mechanics of film photography long before taking his first movie job with the
Keystone Studios in 1914.During
World War I , he worked as aSignal Corps cameraman, and after theArmistice he worked on behalf of Polish war relief, helping thousand of Poles escape the Russian occupied territories.While in
Ukraine in 1920 he met CaptainMerian C. Cooper , who, like Schoedsack, was a fervent anti-Bolshevik and also an aspiring film director. The men renewed their friendship after the hostilities, collaborating on several documentary films, "Grass" (1925) and "Chang" (1927). Still in partnership with Cooper, Schoedsack co-directed the fictional adventure film "The Four Feathers" (1929), then, after another documentary, the Cooper-Schoedsack team helmedRKO 's "The Most Dangerous Game " (1932), which featured "Four Feathers" leading ladyFay Wray .Concurrently with Game, Schoedsack, Cooper, and O'Brien launched their most ambitious project to date: "King Kong" (1933), also with Wray.
Ruth Rose , Schoedsack's wife and an adventure lover in her own right, collaborated on the Kong screenplay.When Merian Cooper assumed leadership of RKO Radio, he took Schoedsack with him as a contract director. Some of Schoedsack's projects were sedate domestic comedies like "
Long Lost Father " (1934), while others were along the spectacular lines of "The Last Days of Pompeii " (1936).Schoedsack and Cooper parted ways in the late 30s, Schoedsack moving to Paramount, where he returned to the live action/miniature combo that had served him well on "Kong" for his first
Technicolor production, "Dr. Cyclops " (1940). His eyesight was severely damaged in World War II, yet he contined to direct films afterwards. He directed "Mighty Joe Young" atRKO in 1949, which was a reunion film of the main King Kong creative team (Cooper, Rose, and O'Brien). Still on the cutting edge of technological advances in the 1950s, Schoedsack directed the in-your-face prologue of the 1952 box-office hit "This is Cinerama ".He and Rose are interred together at
Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery inLos Angeles, California .External links
* [http://movies2.nytimes.com/gst/movies/filmography.html?p_id=110305&mod=bio NY Times Biography]
*imdb name|id=0774325|name=Ernest B. Schoedsack
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