What it Takes to be a WGN-TV News Lensman (1950)

This October 1, 1950 Chicago Daily Tribune article written by WGN news director Spencer Allen discusses five of WGN’s early news photogs – Fred Giese, Felix Kubick, Charlie Gekler, Jimmy Hayden and Leo Bartholomew.

Giese, WGN’s first chief photographer, was a former Pathe newsreel man. Gekler was trained to shoot by the Army Signal Corps during World War Two before he joined the WGN staff while Kubick, Hayden and Bartholomew were former still shooters lured away from the Chicago Tribune.

Read article “What it Takes to be WGN-TV News Lensman” (PDF format)

Harry Walsh goes to charm school

Universal Newsreel photographer Harry Walsh films graduates of the St. Petersburg Charm School at Al Lang Field, St. Petersburg, Florida on November 29, 1947.

Pathe News photographer Cliff Poland was also assigned to cover the charm school graduates and the footage he shot can be seen here.

UPDATES: Names Forgotten to Time

Edit: Greetings visitors from The Freedom Forum. I’ve emailed a bunch of newspaper clippings to Ms Rhule regarding the circumstances of the names listed below.

Expanded post of a posting on my other blog.

In the course of digging up names online through newspaper archives, one occasionally comes across obituaries. Some are short and to the point, others are many inches of praise. Sadly they all have one thing in common – they are names of newsies who died on the job doing what they loved. Some are still recalled, such as KREM’s Gary Brown whose name is occasionally brought up around Spokane’s Bloomsday and has a television photography award named after him by the SPJ Inland Northwest Chapter (at least there was a local Gary Brown Award for general news photography a few years ago, don’t know if its still exists). Most however, are sadly forgotten, lost to the distance of time.

Therefor as an attempt to do the right thing and correct this travesty, the editor of this site has sent a note to keepers of the list at Newseum pointing out the names of thirteen newsreel and television photogs, one editor, two soundmen, one anchor and two reporters who are not included on the Journalists Memorial as of 2009.

The list pointed out to the Newseum:

Theodore Girard “Shorty” Randolph, cameraman, International Newsreel
Randolph drowned in the Columbia River at Stella, Washington on April 23, 1927 after a blast of rock being cut away for the Ocean Beach highway fell into the river and the resulting wave swept Randolph and his camera into the river.

Charles Ralphael Traub, cameraman, Pathe News
Killed when an out-of-control car crashed into Traub while he was on assignment covering an attempted land speed record at Daytona Beach, Florida on March 14, 1929.

Allyn Alexander, cameraman, FOX Movietone News
Lewis Tappan , soundman, FOX Movietone News
Alexander and Tappan were killed in an Army bomber crash while on assignment covering a news story on May 28, 1935 in the Sequoia National Forest, California

James Pergola, cameraman, Pathe News
William Pitt, editor, Pathe News
Pergola and Pitt were killed in an airline crash in the Uinta Mountains of Utah on October 18, 1937 while on assignment covering a story on the safety of transcontinental airline travel. [more info on James Pergola and William Pitt]

Marshall McCarroll, chief photographer Los Angeles Office, Paramount Newsreel
McCarroll was killed in an airplane crash while on assignment filming airplanes in flight on May 10, 1940 in Los Angeles, California.

Fred Bayliss, cameraman, Paramount News
Bayliss was killed in a crash of an Army transport plane while on assignment in the Western Desert, Egypt on July 8, 1943 [additional info on Fred Bayliss]

Lee Doran, cameraman, Universal Newsreel
Doran was killed in Upper Marlboro, Maryland in a traffic accident while returning to New York from an assignment covering the Naval Academy graduation in Annapolis on June 4, 1948.

Marshall Wallace, cameraman, Television News Service of New York
Killed in an airplane crash while on assignment in Ciudad Trujillo, Dominican Republic on August 5, 1955.

Ian Murray, cameraman, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
Murray was killed in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, Canada on August 22, 1955 after a bucket on a crane failed while he was testing camera equipment while on assignment covering the World Boy Scout jamboree.

Roy Edwards, cameraman, News of the Day
Edwards was killed in a news helicopter crash into the Hudson River, New York City on October 12, 1958 while on assignment filming a newsreel on the arrival of a new ocean liner.

Dan Preuhs, photographer, KYW-TV
Bill Loomer, soundman, KYW-TV
Preuhs and Loomer were killed in a news helicopter crash while on assignment filming a charity jogging event on July 14, 1979 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Cole Bunzel, anchor, KXLY-TV
Bunzel was killed in a automobile accident on US Highway 195 south of Spokane, Washington on January 12, 1978 while en-route to Pullman to cover then Vice President Walter Mondale’s speech at Washington State University.

Doug Rives, reporter, KING-TV
Rives fell 200 feet to his death from the top of Bridal Veil Falls while on assignment covering a story about hiking in the Cascade Mountains near Index, Washington on August 13, 1981.

Dan Sullivan, photographer, KTVB-TV
Mary Shore, reporter, KTVB-TV
Sullivan and Shore were killed when airplane KTVB-TV chartered to cover a story at the Idaho Power Substation crashed shortly after takeoff in Hailey, Idaho on September 21, 1987. [additional info on Dan Sullivan and Mary Shore]

Gary Brown, photographer, KREM-TV
Gary Brown and a helicopter pilot were killed after news helicopter crashed due to hitting guy wires of tower located behind station after returning from covering Bloomsday on May 5, 1985.

Norman Alley 1977 Interview

Norman Alley talks about the story that made him internationally famous overnight -- the bombing of the USS Panay by Japan on December 12, 1937.

Will Hudson, Pathe News

Will Hudson started out as a photographer for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, but his interest was motion news photography and after purchasing his own camera, he strung for International Newsreel – selling footage at sixty cents a foot.

In 1913, Hudson went along on a Harvard-Smithsonian expedition to the Arctic to provide a motion picture record of the trip. The trip to the Arctic turned out to be hell on earth after Hudson and the rest of the expedition had to hike across Alaska to safety after their ship, the Polar Bear, was icebound. Hudson wrote about the Polar Bear expedition in his book Icy Hell.

After returning to Seattle, Hudson was more than happy to settle down and took a staff job with Pathe News shooting news across the Pacific Northwest until his death in 1945.

Joe Gibson covers the Cuban Revolution

Joe Gibson talks about being shot in the leg while covering the 1935 Cuban Revolution for Universal Newsreel.

Terror of the Tropics

Since the first news cameraman showed up in hurricane country, photogs have been riding out the storms to document them ever since – even as the population around them flees.

In the 1920s, a deaf cameraman by the name of Ralph Earle was assigned to Pathe News’ Miami bureau, where in September of 1926, he rode out the devastating Category 4 hurricane that nearly wiped out Miami. The Miami News describes the acclaims he was endowed with:

Miami Pathe News Man Wins Acclaim for Pluck in Storm. Undaunted, Ralph Earle Scores Movie Beat on Hurricane Pictures.

Training his little motion picture camera into the face of the raging Florida hurricane, Ralph Earle, Pathe news cameraman for the Miami district, won the praise of the movie world for his feat in scoring a newsreel “beat” of the disaster.

Ralph Earle is back in Miami now, but the news of his acclaim in the north does not come from him. His Miami friends are the ones who make known his glory.

A veteran in the service is Cameraman Earle. He covered the Japanese earthquake. He holds a record in covering seven major events in various parts of the country in eight days. So when he learned a hurricane was approaching, he wired to his New York headquarters for extra film, which was rushed to him.

When the storm broke, he was imprisoned in a house at Miami Beach. But he kept his film dry by enclosing it in a fiber truck and placing the trunk on a chair in a protected corner of his room. The wind had not abated when Earle went onto the firing line, making a multitude of shots.

When he finished, he made his way to Jacksonville and there was met by an airplane which took him to Atlanta. From there he flew in another plane, piloted by Doug Davis, winner in the previous air races at Philadelphia. This plane was forced down by fog at Greenville, N. C., and Earle commandeered a fast automobile which caught the Birmingham Express. He went to Bolling Field, Washington, through a perfectly dovetailed schedule arranged by Pathe officials, and there caught a plane for the last lap of his journey.

He arrived at 4:32 p.m., Tuesday, Sept. 22. His pictures were shown on Broadway screens that same evening, while newspapers in New York “played” his pictures as the first authentic photographs from the storm area.

Utterly exhausted from his long strain, Earle went to a hospital for a rest. He was not there long, however, for he was called to cover the Missouri floods for the Pathe organization. When he finished that assignment, he reported back at headquarters and was detailed to Miami again.

After the arrival of sound newsreels, Ralph Earle was forced to retire due to his deafness since it was assumed he would be unable to cope with the new cameras and the demands for natural sound. He spend his waning years as a portrait photographer in Saint Petersburg.

The footage of the Miami hurricane Earle shot can be found here.

Lookout b-roll

A newsreel cameraman whose name is lost to time, shoots landscape scenery from an observation deck.

The camera being used, an Akeley, in its day was a revolution and a favorite during the newsreel era even after the arrival of sound pictures.

Among the features Carl Akeley introduced in 1914 that still being used today on modern gear was the ball head to allow smooth panning/tilting.

Racing the Surf at Waikiki

After shooting a story of the Fiji firewalkers, Fox Movietone News soundman Charles “Chic” Peden and his colleagues cameraman Johnny Tondra and contact man AA Brown were sent next to Hawaii to shoot a story of the surfers at Waikiki Beach.

While they got their story, they nearly lost it and their gear to the waves themselves in the process as Peden related:

“We’ll have to step on it this time,” broke in Evers, a bit of concern tingeing his words. “The wind has shifted to another quarter, and on that last run I had a tough time holding the canoe true on its course. With all that stuff you put into her, she doesn’t respond the way she ought to.”

Back at the starting line we waited a while until Johnny had focused his six-inch lens for an individual shot of the best surfer. I noticed, with the aid of my ear phones, that the thunder of the surf was growing louder.

Johnny made the “let her go” signal. Once again we leaped forward, and this time we fairly scudded. The wave that propelled us was gigantic; every inch of the canoe’s lengh vibrated to the comber’s force. Even the Kanakas seemd to be having trouble in keeping their balance on the surf boards; they wobbled perilously from side to side, and their grins had changed to looks of worry.

One hundred, two hundred feet we sped, then the canoe began to yaw. Evers was frantically straining at the paddle in an effort to keep us on a straight line; his teeth were gritted, and his biceps bulged to the utmost.

It was too much for one man, however. Veering sharply, the heavy craft started to ride the wave’s crest obliquely. The effect was to raise the balancing outrigger from the water, and as this happened, we began turning over like a log. Helpless in the grip of the surf, we were swamped in an instance. We were about to capsize completely when Evers, with a heroic lunge, leaped out to throw his weight on the outrigger. This saved the canoe from turning bottom up, but now, without the guidance of a steersman, it spun crazily. Inside the craft we were having our own troubles. The water had shorted all the batteries, and everything was sputtering and crackling; smoke shot out of the amplifier, and we felt the sting of the juice as high-frequency leads charged the salt water.

Another breaker crashed against the canoe. The camera broke its lashings and fell upon us. Johnny let out a howl of pain as a tripod leg folded on his fingers, and I caught the sharp corner of the camera square on my face.  Blood began trickling down the side of my nose, and I felt myself getting dizzy. I was frantically trying to get free before we turned over. I discoverd my foot was wedged tight by a sixty-pound battery.

How lovely, I thought, if this thing tips over now!

It certainly looked hopeless, but the next wave came to our rescue and washed the canoe far up on the shore. In a few minutes we were being pulled out of the boat by the watching crowd.

After getting patched up a bit, we studied the condition of our outfit. It certainly looked hopeless, but nevertheless we unloaded the film magazines and made a test to check results. The drenching had not spoiled the film, and looking at the negative we all agreed the effort had been worth while.

(photo courtesy of Marcia Miner)

On location in Fiji

Courtesy of Marcia Miner née Peden, comes this photos of her father, Fox Movietone News soundman Charles “Chic” Peden and his colleagues cameraman Johnny Tondra and contact man AA Brown on location in Fiji in 1931.

One of the stories they shot while in Fiji was the firewalkers of Beqa Island, where Peden in his autobiogaphy, relates the reaction of the natives to his sound equipment:

“I passed the ear phones to the chief, that he might listen in. Hearing the racket of his subjects, greatly amplified by the recording system, his jaw dropped in amazement. Excitedly summoning the more important members of his tribe, the Buli bade them to listen. Gingerly putting the phones to their ears, they listened in incredulous wonder. It was laughable to watch their reactions. Some dropped the phones with shrieks of fear, while others were stupefied by what they heard. From that moment our position was assured. We were super-beings in their eyes. The Buli directed a long speech towards us, terminating it with a bow.”