Transformed Aging Stars Into Glamour Queens : Cinematographer Joe Walker Dies

Joseph (Joe) Walker, whose ability to transform aging motion picture stars into glamorous girls made him one of the most demanded and honored cinematographers in Hollywood’s history, is dead.

Walker was 92 when he died Thursday in a Las Vegas hospital. He had moved to Las Vegas in 1982, the year he published “The Light on Her Face,” his aptly titled autobiography.

Walker, probably best known as the chief cameraman on most of the Frank Capra productions of the 1930s and ‘40s, came to Hollywood from his native Denver in 1910. Here he studied with Lee DeForest, the sound and wireless genius. In 1911 he transmitted some of the earliest news reports over wireless and then began to film newsreels and documentaries.

DeForest’s inventing skills evidently rubbed off on the young cameraman, for Walker himself in 1922 crafted what may have been the first zoom lens, parent of the “Electra-Zoom,” believed the first zoom lens used on television.

He also held patents for a panoramic camera, an aircraft remote control system and developed an auditory range finder for the blind.

But he will best be remembered for the retinue of grateful women who remained reigning screen beauties despite nature’s best efforts to curtail their careers.

In his autobiography, Walker recalled his first challenge.

In 1927 he was summoned to Harry Cohn’s office and was told by the Columbia Studios boss that he had been chosen to film “The Warning,” starring femme fatale Dorothy Revier. There was a stipulation, however.

“Make her look good and you’ve got the job. But if she doesn’t you’re out! “

His efforts resulted in his quickly being dubbed a “woman’s photographer,” and many successful stars were later to stipulate that if Walker was not behind the camera they wouldn’t be in front of it.

He lighted Rosalind Russell so that at age 38 she could pass for someone’s teen-age daughter, made Jean Arthur a youthful heroine at a time when she was worried about having to drift into character roles, made a film star out of diva Grace Moore, who had been declared “unphotographable” because of her ample figure and unseeming proboscis. He also worked his minor and major miracles on such other stars as Jean Harlow, Barbara Stanwyck, Loretta Young, Irene Dunne, Joan Crawford and Rita Hayworth.

He was a favorite of both directors Capra and Howard Hawks, and his credits are a lexicon of Hollywood’s Golden Age--”It Happened One Night,” “Mr. Deeds Goes to Town,” “Lost Horizon,” “You Can’t Take It With You,” “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” “Arizona,” “Here Comes Mr. Jordan,” “A Night to Remember,” “It’s a Wonderful Life,” “The Jolson Story” and “Born Yesterday.”

When he retired in the early 1950s to concentrate on optical research, he had worked on more than 160 films and been nominated for an Academy Award three times. In 1976 he became only one of three cameramen ever inducted into the Motion Picture Hall of Fame and in 1982 was made the first recipient of the Gordon Sawyer Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

The special Oscar, named for the Goldwyn Studios sound pioneer, is given for “outstanding technical contributions for the advancement of the motion picture industry.”

Walker is survived by his wife, Juanita, who helped write his autobiography, and daughter, Marjorie. Services are scheduled for Monday at Bunker Mortuary, Las Vegas.