Gary Graver

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Gary Graver (July 20, 1938 - November 16, 2006) was an American director and cinematographer. He was a prolific film-maker but is perhaps best-known as Orson Welles' final cinematographer.

Graver was born and raised in Portland, Oregon. In high school, he produced and starred in his own radio show, and had built a theatre in his parents' basement.

At age 20, he moved to Hollywood to become an actor, but drifted into the production side when work as an actor was hard to come by. He was drafted into the military and was assigned to the U.S. Navy Combat Camera Group.

Upon returning to civilian life, Graver made documentaries for a year before starting to work on larger budget features.

In 1970, Graver called on Orson Welles out of the blue, saying he wanted to work with Welles. Welles said that only one other person had ever called up and said they wanted to work with him - Gregg Toland who worked with Welles on Citizen Kane.

The two of them soon after started work on the film The Other Side of the Wind. As well, Welles and Graver worked extensively on other projects together including F For Fake, Filming Othello and It's All True.

Besides working with Welles, Graver also worked for other notable Hollywood directors such as Roger Corman and Ron Howard. The bulk of his productions were B-movies, since as he put it "I knew how to make a movie without much money."^[1]

Graver also worked in the adult film industry under the pseudonym Robert McCallum, where he produced more than 135 films, including Unthinkable which won the AVN Award for Best All-Sex Video in 1985. Graver was later inducted into the AVN Hall of Fame for his work.^[2]

Graver died on November 16, 2006 at his home in Rancho Mirage, California after a lengthy battle with cancer.