American Cinematographer - September 1990 - 90

Ellis Franklin "Bud" Thackery, ASC,
whose 50-year career in cinematography

was

Some of his most interesting
done in 1930-31 for the Dun¬

TV series,
Matlock. Other survivors include a sister,
Cora Thackery, 12 grandchildren and four

ning Process Company, whose composite
process was somewhat ancestral to the
present blue screen technique, although
the Dunning composites were done in the
camera rather than by optical printing. Es¬
pecially notable
were
Dirigible,
Just Imagine, Mr.

great-grandchildren.
Thackery's weatherbeaten

Robinson Crusoe
and Subway Ex¬

features and mode of dress lent him

press. The latter, a
Columbia murder

predicated upon a mastery of every
aspect of the field, died July 14 at the age
of 87. He was the father of Connie Beilin,

was

L. E. "Bill"

Thackery, and Frank Thackery,
the latter a cinematographer whose re¬
cent credits include the

more

the appearance of a cowboy than the
skilled artist he was. He came by this look

naturally, having spent much of his life
working in the great outdoors.
He

was

born in Oklahoma Ter¬

on January 31, 1903, to ranchers
Frank and Bessie Thackery. The family
later moved to a reservation in Arizona,
where he went to school with the Indian
children and helped his father punch
cattle. During World War I the Thackerys
lived on a wheat farm in Montana. After¬

ritory

wards, they moved to California, where
Bud finished his secondary education at
Manual Arts

High School in Los Angeles.
Thackery was a student at
Chaffee College in 1924, when he went
to work at the old Warner

Bros. Studio

on

for which he received

erns and outdoor
action pictures
that were the

bread-and-butter
of Republic, with

which
takes place on a
speeding subway
train, is the only

stars like Wild Bill

Elliott,

In 1934, when Nat Levine

Allan

"Rocky"Lane, Bob
Livingston, Sunset

feature that was
filmed in its en¬

leased the Mack Sennett lot in Studio
as the new headquarters of Mascot

Academy

During the 1940s Thackery
began doing second unit photography
between special effects assignments. He
also photographed
a large number of
the popular West¬

mystery

tirety on a Dunning
stage. At RKO
Radio Thackery
worked on glass
paintings, mini¬
atures, Dunning
process and rear
projection effects
for The Most Dangerous Game and King
Kong, among many.

an

nomination, Flying Tigers (1942), In Old
Oklahoma (1943) and The Man From
Frisco (1944).

Carson and Monte
Hale. He also
made some highly

regarded mystery
dramas
during
those years, such
as The Girl Who

Dared, The Vam¬

pire's Ghost, The
Fatal Witness, The Undercover Woman
and Traffic in Crime.

Thackery shot some television
Republic during the 1950s and
signed by Universal to special¬
ize in TV production. A few of his many
shows were Tales of Wells Fargo, The
Jane Wyman Theatre, Alfred Hitchcock
Presents, Schlitz Playhouse of Stars,

City
Pic¬
tures, he hired Thackery as head special
effects cameraman. Thackery was
teamed with miniature specialists How¬
ard and Theodore Lydecker for The Phan¬
tom Empire (1935), a serial about an
underground kingdom in which Thackery
made capital use of the miniature projec¬
tion techniques he had learned on King
Kong. Late in 1935 Mascot and several
other independents merged to form Re¬
public Pictures. Thackery and the Lydeckers remained with Republic for 26 years,
creating visual effects that were the envy

shows at
later was

photog¬
raphy, by which actors could play dual

of all the studios. A veritable cult follow¬

wrote the first article about the use of a

ing still exists for the superb effects

new

roles.

sequences in the 66 Republic serials and
such features as Women in War (1940),

American

Sunset as

an

assistant

tant cameraman.

glass artist/assis¬

Later, he worked inde¬

pendently, making glass shots on numer¬
ous silent pictures. In the dawn of the
talking picture era he worked on some of
the earliest Vitaphone sound on disc pic¬
tures, including the part-talking The Jazz
SingerU 927), the first all-talking feature,
Lights of New York( 1928) and the first
version of the Romberg operetta, The
Desert Song (1929). When Warners
bought the First National Studio in Bur¬
bank in 1929 Thackery became a member
of the special effects department headed
by Fred Jackman, ASC. One of his special¬
ties

88

work

was

American

in-camera

split

screen

Cinematographer

September 1990

Bachelor Father, The Tall Man, General
Electric Theatre, Frontier Circus, Alcoa

Theatre, Checkmate,

Thriller and

Westinghouse Playhouse, and features
such

as

The Plainsman, Once

Upon

a

Savage Night and Cloudbusters.
Some of his theatrical features
include Santa Fe Passage (1954), The

Raiders(1963) and Beau Geste( 1966). He

high speed color positive film in
Cinematographer s 1964.
▲
American Cinematographer - September 1990

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