Lionel Lindon

In 1950, he went freelance and began to work in television as well as film, continuing to work until the year of his death. He was three times nominated for an Academy Award for Best Cinematography and in 1956 was the winner of the award for color for Around the World in 80 Days.

Lionel—son of film editor Verna Willis and nephew to Set Director, Edwin B. Willis, —was a native of San Francisco. Soon after leaving school, Lindon got a job as a general assistant at Paramount Pictures and joined the camera department. Through the Roaring Twenties, he worked as a camera assistant and as a "foreign negative cameraman", in 1930 becoming a cameraman. In 1943, he made his debut as a director of photography and went on to serve in that capacity in some 66 American films, including Westerns. In 1950 he went freelance, which did not prevent him from working for Paramount on occasions. His final three films appeared in 1969.

The major names he worked with include John Frankenheimer, Frank Sinatra, Laurence Harvey, Edward Ludwig, Arlene Dahl, George Marshall, Alan Ladd, Veronica Lake, and Dorothy Lamour. Lindon received three Oscar nominations for best cinematographer, one of which led to the award. Lindon also worked in television between 1953 and 1971, contributing to 39 television series, including Alfred Hitchcock Presents, and eight TV movies.

He died in the Los Angeles suburb of Van Nuys on September 20, 1971.

Cinema

Television movies

• 1964: See How They Run, David Lowell Rich
• 1967: The Meanest Men in the West, Charles S. Dubin and Samuel Fuller
• 1970: The Movie Murderer, Boris Sagal
• 1970: Ritual of Evil, Robert Day
• 1971: Do You Take This Stranger?, Richard T. Heffron
• 1971: Vanished, Buzz Kulik

• Academy Award for Best Cinematography :
  • 1944, black and white, for Going My Way (nominated)
  • 1956, color, for Around the World in 80 Days (winner)
  • 1958, black and white, for I Want to Live! (nominated)