American Cinematographer - March 2013 - 71

In Memoriam

Photo courtesy of Robert Austin.

Charles Austin, ASC, 1921-2013

Director of photography Charles Lee
“Chuck” Austin, ASC died Jan. 7 at his residence in the Actors Fund Home in Englewood, N.J. He was 91.
Austin was
born on Nov. 7,
1921, in New York
City, and he grew
up in the Bronx,
where from an
early age he
demonstrated an
interest in and
knack for photography. While in
high
school,
Austin met Yvette Stern, and the two were
married in 1943, after Austin enlisted in the
U.S. Air Force and just prior to his deployment to the European Theater of Operations. He served as a combat photographer
with the 25th Bomb Group of the 8th Air
Force.
Following his discharge in 1945,
Austin completed the schooling he had
begun at City College and Columbia University, attending the Ozenfant School of Fine
Arts to study photography. He began his
civilian career with advertising and photojournalism assignments before finding work
as a consultant to advertising and independent-filmmaking concerns in New York.
In 1950, Austin joined the Mitchell
Camera Corp. as a technical representative.
Although he was based in New York, he
traveled extensively around the globe, visiting productions that were using Mitchell
equipment and liaising between the camera
technicians on those shows and Mitchell’s
engineers. In 1952, he joined IATSE Local
644 as a director of photography, but he
continued to serve as a consultant for
Mitchell, and in 1963, he temporarily relocated to California to assist with a new
camera design.
Despite his brief stint in California,
Austin’s heart belonged on the East Coast,
and as a cinematographer based in New
York, he contributed second unit and additional photography to such films as The

Trouble with Harry, The Sweet Smell of
Success, The Manchurian Candidate (1962),
Seven Days in May, Plaza Suite and The
Way We Were. Over the years, he also
worked on such
series as Naked
City, The Defenders and Banacek,
and he shot a
number of documentaries for CBS
in addition to
corporate
and
industrial films.
Walter
Strenge,
ASC
recommended Austin for active membership in the Society. In a letter to ASC President William Daniels, Austin wrote, “If the
Board of Governors sees fit to bring me into
membership, I shall always strive to conduct
myself with the loyalty, dignity, honor and
creativity synonymous with [the] ASC.”
Indeed the board did see fit, and the next
month Austin’s name was added to the
roster.
Austin was also a member of the Air
Force Association, the Society of Motion
Picture and Television Engineers, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences,
the Academy of Television Arts and
Sciences, the British Kinematograph Society
and the Society of Photographic Instrumentation Engineers.
He was most active, though, with
Local 644, where he served many years on
the executive board and three terms as
president. Austin retired in 1985, but he
continued to inspire those around him with
his passion for image making while regaling
them with his tales of camera-wielding
derring-do.
Austin is survived by his wife, Yvette;
their sons, Robert and Rick; and three
grandchildren.
— Jon D. Witmer
●

http://www.theasc.com http://www.theasc.com

American Cinematographer - March 2013

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