American Cinematographer - August 2015 - 85

In Memoriam

Photo courtesy of the ASC archives.

Bradley B. Six, ASC, 1940-2015
Society member Bradley B. Six died
on June 9. He was 74.
Six was born in Los Angeles on Dec.
8, 1940. His father, Bert, was a studio still
photographer, and his mother,
Lorayne Duval, was an actor. As Six
told AC for the June '84 issue, "I was
brought up in this business, but I
never thought I would be doing what
I am doing today. Believe it or not,
years ago, I thought I would like to be
a dentist."
Nevertheless, Six entered
what he referred to as "the studio
business" in 1959 with a job in the
Warner Bros. mail room. In his downtime at the studio, he visited and
asked questions of the camera
department, where he soon found a
job as a film loader. When budget
constraints forced a shutdown at the
studio, Six moved over to Fox, where
he was responsible for taking care of
the camera equipment. It would be
another two years, though, before he
went out on production.
Once on set, Six showed great
patience and humility as he climbed
the ranks toward cinematographer.
"There were several directors of
photography I worked with as an assistant or
as an operator that influenced me," Six told
AC. "Jack Swain, ASC was one of them. I
worked with him on Daniel Boone for five
years and he ... taught me a lot, the basics:
'Come on the set and keep your eyes open
and your mouth shut. Watch!'"
Six worked with cinematographer
William Clothier, ASC on the John Wayne
feature The Undefeated, and with Ted
Moore, BSC on the James Bond film
Diamonds Are Forever. He also assisted or
operated for such ASC members as Gerald
Perry Finnerman and William Spencer, working alongside the latter for a full decade on
series such as The FBI and Barnaby Jones.
While on hiatus from Barnaby Jones,
Six took a job as an operator on the telefilm

Power, which was being photographed by
Jacques Marquette, ASC. When Marquette
fell ill during production, Six was asked to
take the reins as director of photography.

Twenty years after starting in the mail room,
he had at last arrived. "I was shaking from
head to toe," he recalled. "You hope that
it's going to come, but you never expect it
that way. I worked on the show for two or
three weeks, and then Marquette came
back. Shortly after that, I was asked to come
to MGM to do a pilot."
In addition to pilots, Six began
shooting second unit on series such as The
Dukes of Hazzard and the Stephen J.
Cannell-produced The Greatest American
Hero. Cannell then asked Six to shoot the
series Quest, followed by the hugely
successful The A-Team. Six's other television
credits included episodes of the series Trapper John, M.D., Mike Hammer, Quantum
Leap and 7th Heaven.

www.theasc.com

Six received his first Emmy nomination for an episode of the Western series
The Chisholms that aired in 1980. "That
made me feel good," he told AC. "I didn't
win, but it's the nomination that
counts, because it comes from your
peers." He was again nominated a
decade later for the Midnight Caller
episode "Evil is Live Spelled Backward" (AC Oct. '90).
Throughout his television career,
Six was frequently paired with firsttime directors. While shooting The ATeam, he opined, "If the guy is a
straight shooter, I'll bust my fanny for
him. But I can't tolerate incompetence."
He was likewise adamant when it
came to safety on set. "Coming up
through the ropes, I was put in the
position of being stuck behind the
camera as an operator or as an assistant," he said. "Now I'm the boss and
I can just walk away when we are
doing a stunt, but I don't. I will not
put my operators or my assistant in a
position that I wouldn't be in. If I feel
it's not safe, I say 'no.'"
Following the recommendations
of Society members Alric Edens, Sherman Kunkel and Richard L. Rawlings, Six
was officially made a member of the ASC
on Oct. 7, 1985. He would go on to participate in the Awards, Golf and Membership
Committees, and remained involved with
Society activities after retiring in 1998.
Some 14 years earlier, when asked
to consider his role as a cinematographer,
Six offered, "First of all, I think of myself as
a human being; second of all, as someone
who makes entertainment. I consider myself
a technician, but on the other hand I feel
like an artist. When I decide how to use
light, in a sense I am painting. I am painting
the picture I envision on that screen."
- Jon D. Witmer
●

August 2015

http://www.theasc.com

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