Hal Mohr

Hal Mohr
Born	(1894-08-02)August 2, 1894 San Francisco, California, U.S.
Died	May 10, 1974(1974-05-10) (aged 79) Santa Monica, California, U.S.
Occupation	cinematographer
Title	A.S.C. President (1930-1931), (1963-1965), (1969-1970),
Spouse(s)	Evelyn Venable (1934-74)
Awards	Academy Award for Best Cinematographer A Midsummer Night's Dream Hollywood Walk of Fame

Hal Mohr, A.S.C. (August 2, 1894, San Francisco — May 10, 1974, Santa Monica, California) was a famed movie cinematographer.

Career

In 1915, in an early example of an exploitation film peddled directly to theater owners, Mohr and Sol Lesser produced and directed a film The Last Night of the Barbary Coast. This film purported to show the last night of the depraved Barbary Coast red-light district of San Francisco before it was shut down by the police. (The area wasn't actually closed down until 1917.) This is now considered a lost film.

Notably, Mohr is the only person to have won a competitive Academy Award without being nominated for it. In 1936, a write-in campaign won him the Best Cinematography Oscar for his work on A Midsummer Night's Dream (1935). The Academy later changed the Oscar rules, making write-in voting impossible. Mohr won another Academy Award for his work on The Phantom of the Opera (1943).

Mohr was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Cinematographer for his work on The Fourposter (1952), a film based on a play of the same name, written by Jan de Hartog. He was also nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Cinematography in a Black and White Film, for his work on the same movie.

Other film cinematographer credits include Cheers for Miss Bishop (1941), Another Part of the Forest (1948) and The Wild One (1953).

Personal life

On December 7, 1934, Mohr married actress Evelyn Venable, whom he met on the set of the Will Rogers film David Harum. Strict vegetarians, they had two daughters, Dolores and Rosalia, and remained married until his death in 1974.

External links

• Hal Mohr at the Internet Movie Database