William H. Daniels

William H. Daniels came up in the silent era and served an unforgettable apprenticeship under the tyrannical perfectionist Erich von Stroheim, photographing sequences of the legendary, mutilated epic "Greed," much of it shot on real locations in punishing conditions. The experience forged a cinematographer of uncommon rigor and adaptability.

His destiny changed when he became the trusted cameraman of Greta Garbo. For roughly two decades at MGM, Daniels photographed nearly all of her films, and the two developed an almost private understanding of how to render her extraordinary face. He knew precisely how to light her heavy-lidded eyes and sculpted features, when to soften and when to sharpen, how to make her seem to think on camera. Garbo reportedly refused to work without him, and the enduring image of her, luminous and unknowable in films like "Grand Hotel," "Anna Christie," and "Camille," is inseparable from his lighting. He was, in the industry's phrase, simply Garbo's cameraman.

But Daniels was far more than a glamour specialist. After Garbo's retirement he proved his range dramatically by shooting Jules Dassin's "The Naked City" on the actual streets of New York, a landmark of location realism whose documentary texture felt startlingly fresh. It brought him the Academy Award, a striking recognition for work as far as possible from the plush MGM soundstages where he had made his name.

He remained in demand through the 1950s and 1960s, lending his polish to a wide variety of films and forging a productive partnership with the actor and producer Frank Sinatra. Later he moved into production management as well, an elder craftsman respected across the industry. Daniels died in 1970, remembered both as the guardian of the silent era's most iconic face and as a restless professional who could just as readily find beauty in a sweltering summer sidewalk as on a star's cheekbone.