Karl Freund
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Karl W. Freund (January 16, 1890-May 3, 1969) was a German cinematographer and film director.
Born in Königinhof, Bohemia, his career began in 1905 when, at age 15, he got a job as an assistant projectionist for a film company in Berlin.
He worked as a cinematographer on over 100 films, including Metropolis (1927), Dracula (1931), and Key Largo (1948). He won an Academy Award for Best Cinematography for The Good Earth (1937).
Between 1921 and 1935, Freund also directed ten films, of which the best known are probably The Mummy (1932) starring Boris Karloff, and his last film as director, Mad Love (1935) starring Peter Lorre.
In the 1950s, at the height of his movie career, he was persuaded by Desi Arnaz to be the cinematographer for Arnaz's television series I Love Lucy; critics have credited Freund for the show's lustrous black and white cinematography.
Freund's only known film as an actor is Carl Dreyer's Michael (1924) where he plays a sycophantic art dealer who we see saving the tobacco ashes dropped by a famous painter.
