American cinematographer who spent the bulk of his career at Paramount
(1923-1959). After two years apprenticed in the studio lab, Fapp first
worked the movie camera as an assistant in 1925. By 1941, he had
graduated to full director of photography at the behest of
cinematographer, turned director,
Ted Tetzlaff. Fapp joined the
American Society of Cinematographers that same year. Though he was
generally confined to shooting B-grade material, he was allowed to
shine whenever bigger budgeted productions came his way. He did
arguably his best work for the director
Mitchell Leisen, who, as a former art
director and costume designer, had a famously keen eye for visual
style.
Fapp excelled shooting Leisen's sumptuous-looking period romance
Eine Lady mit Vergangenheit (1945) (a true example of style
trumping content). He was equally effective on another Leisen film,
lensing Olivia de Havilland (as she
aged in the course of three decades) in the superior tearjerker
Mutterherz (1946). Other
efforts in contrasting style: the noirish crime flic
Spiel mit dem Tode (1948) in stark,
austere black & white; the vivid Technicolor frontier adventure
Am fernen Horizont (1955), its
stunning scenery expertly captured in Vista Vision (directed by another
former cinematographer, Rudolph Maté); the
frantic Billy Wilder farce
Eins, zwei, drei (1961); and
West Side Story (1961), which
finally won Fapp an Oscar (and a Golden Laurel Award) for Best Color
Cinematography. After leaving Paramount in 1959, Fapp free-lanced for
another decade and retired in 1969.
