Oscar-winning director of photography William Daniels was a master of
black-and-white cinematographer most famous for the 21 films he shot
that starred the immortal Greta Garbo
between 1926 and 1939. Among the Gabro classics he lensed were
The Torrent (1924),
Es war (1926),
Anna Karenina (1927) (Garbo and home studio MGM's
first crack at Lev Tolstoy's "Anna
Karenina"), Mata Hari (1931),
Menschen im Hotel (1932),
Königin Christine (1933), the sound
remake of Anna Karenina (1935),
Die Kameliendame (1936), and
Ninotschka (1939).
He won fame for his lensing of Garbo, but to those who claimed that he
was essential to his success, Daniels replied, "I didn't create a
'Garbo face.' I just did portraits of her I would have done for any
star. My lighting of her was determined by the requirements of a scene.
I didn't, as some say I did, keep one side of her face light and the
other dark. But I did always try to make the camera peer into the eyes,
to see what was there."
Though he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Cinematography
for the 1930 English-language version of
Anna Christie (1930) (he also shot
the 1931 German-language version
Anna Christie (1930)), ironically,
it was his only nomination for a Garbo film. He won his Oscar in 1949
for his brilliant B+W cinematography on the classic film noir
Stadt ohne Maske (1948).
Daniels received two other Oscar nominations. He was President of the
American Society of Cinematographers from 1961 to 1963.
