Born August 22, 1892 in Denver, Colorado, Joseph Bailey Walker worked as a wireless telephone engineer, inventor and photographer of documentaries for the Red Cross during World War I before beginning his feature film career in 1919 with Back to God’s Country, a Canadian film that was filmed near the Artic Circle. He then freelanced as a cinematographer until he signed a contract with Columbia in 1927, where he remained for the rest of his career.

Walker’s first film for Columbia was Frank Capra’s Submarine for which he and Capra worked out a way to use miniature toys and a discarded aquarium found in the props department to conjure up special effects. Walker quickly became Capra’s favorite cinematographer. He worked on all the director’s films for the next ten years including Lady for a Day, It Happened One Night, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, Lost Horizon, You Can’t Take It with You and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. He received his first Oscar nomination for You Can’t Take It with You. Among films he made for other directors during this period were Richard Boleslawski’s Theodora Goes Wild and Leo McCarey’s The Awful Truth.

He was married to first wife, silent screen actress Marjorie Warfield from 1923 to 1935. She was the mother of his daughter, Margaret.

Working with Howard Hawks, Walker received his second Oscar nomination for 1939’s Only Angels Have Wings and was again director of photography on Hawks’ 1940 film, His Girl Friday. Working with Alexander Hall, he received his third Oscar nomination for 1941’s Here Comes Mr. Jordan and was again director of photography for 1942’s My Sister Eileen. Among films he made for other directors during the 1940s were George Stevens’ Penny Serenade and Alfred E. Green’s The Jolson Story, for which he received his fourth Oscar nomination, his first for a color film. He reunited briefly with Capra for 1946’s It’s a Wonderful Life.

In the early 1950s, Walker worked with George Cukor on Born Yesterday and The Marrying Kind and Vincent Sherman on Harriet Craig and Affair in Trinidad, retiring from behind the camera at the age of 60.

In addition to his film work, Walker held twenty patents on various camera-related inventions he devised, including the Double Exposure System, several zoom lenses, the Duomar Lens for both motion picture and television cameras, the Variable Diffusion Device, the Facial Make-Up Meter, lightweight camera blimps, and optical diffusion techniques. He also designed and built wide angle lenses for the Todd-AO system.

Walker was the first recipient of the Gordon E. Sawyer Award, presented to him in recognition of his technological contributions to the film industry by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 1982 at the age of 89. With the help of second wife, Juanita, he wrote his autobiography in 1984 at the age of 91. He died in Las Vegas, Nevada on August 1, 1985, seventeen days before what would have been his 93rd birthday.

ESSENTIAL FILMS

IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT (1934), directed by Frank Capra

There are many reasons for the success of Capra’s enduring comedy, not the least of which are the Oscar winning contributions of actors Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert, screenwriter Robert Riskin and Capra himself, but Walker’s non-nominated cinematography should not go unremarked upon. Who can forget the “walls of Jericho”, Colbert’s trick of hitching a ride or the many moments on the bus? Perhaps other cinematographers would have captured those moments as well as Walker did, but only Walker is likely to have come up with the still talked about moonlit hayfield. That required the pure imagination of an inventor.

LOST HORIZON (1937), directed by Frank Capra

The 18th film lensed by Walker for Capra was perhaps the most cinematic of them all. There are many fine touches throughput the film from the crash landing to the escape across the mountains, but none stands out as vividly as the torchlit funeral procession following the death of the High Lama. Although the film was nominated for seven Oscars and won two for Art Direction and Editing, Walker was strangely left out of the mix in a category that had only three nominees. He would finally be recognized by the Academy for his work on a Capra film with You Can’t Take It with You the following year.

PENNY SERENDADE (1941), directed by George Stevens

Known in the industry as a “woman’s photographer”, Walker captured the best attributes of his leading ladies through his close-ups, shot with his own patented 4-inch lenses. One of the women he captured so beautifully was Irene Dunne in Theodora Goes Wild, The Awful Truth, Joy of Living and especially here as she listens to recordings that remind her of the joys and sorrows of her marriage to Cary Grant. It’s one of Hollywood’s great tearjerkers that earns its tears in no small measure due to the concentration of Walker’s close-ups on the enigmatic face of its female star.

MY SISTER EILEEN (1942), directed by Alexander Hall

One of the other women that Walker so skillfully photographed was Rosalind Russell who he lensed so skillfully in Howard Hawks’ His Girl Friday the year after his lensing of Hawks’ Only Angels Have Wings earned him his second Oscar nod. A year after earning his third Oscar nod for Hall’s Here Comes Mr. Jordan, he worked again with Hall and with Russell, who received the first of her four Oscar nominations for recreating her stage triumph as the budding writer in My Sister Eileen. No nod for Walker this time, but then there were no other nods than Russell’s for this film in a highly competitive year.

IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE (1946), directed by Frank Capra

Not having worked with Capra since 1939’s Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, which was Capra’s last film for Columbia, Walker was given a final opportunity to work with Capra, who considered him his favorite cinematographer, on Capra’s now-classic independent film. Although Joseph Biroc was principal cinematographer, Walker’s contributions included James Stewart’s iconic run along the snow-covered main street of Bedford Falls. Cinematography was not among the film’s five Oscar nominations, but Walker was nominated for the fourth time this year for The Jolson Story, his first nomination for a color film.

JOSEPH WALKER AND OSCAR

• You Can’t Take It with You (1938) – nominated – Best Cinematography
• Only Angels Have Wings (1939) – nominated – Best Cinematography, Black-and-White
• Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941) – nominated – Best Cinematography, Black-and-White
• The Jolson Story (1946) – nominated – Best Cinematography, Color
• Scientific Award (1981) – Oscar – First Recipient, Gordon E. Sawyer Award