News Digest

Life through a lens: Double Oscar-winning cameraman Haskell Wexler dies at 93

Haskell Wexler, one of Hollywood’s most famous and honored cinematographers and one whose innovative approach helped him win Oscars for “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” and the Woody Guthrie biopic “Bound for Glory,” has died. He was 93. Wexler was also behind the cameras when Jack Nicholson’s cult classic One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest was made in 1975. He was hailed as an “inspiration” to the entire industry, by Steven Poster, president of the International Cinematographers Guild.

His real passion was much larger than just making movies. His real passion was for human beings and justice and peace.

Eldest son Jeff Wexler

Wexler died peacefully in his sleep at his Santa Monica home on Sunday, his son, Oscar-nominated sound man Jeff Wexler, said. A liberal activist, Wexler photographed some of the most socially relevant and influential films of the 1960s and 1970s, including the Jane Fonda-Jon Voight anti-war classic, “Coming Home,” and the Sidney Poitier-Rod Steiger racial drama “In the Heat of the Night”. He was also the rare cinematographer known enough to the general public to receive a star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame. Fonda praised Wexler on her Twitter account. "The brilliant, beloved Oscar-winning cinematographer, Haskell Wexler has died. He was my friend. He was brave & gorgeous and I loved him,“ she wrote.

I don’t think there’s a movie I’ve been on that I didn’t think I could direct better.

Haskell Wexler