FRED J. KOENEKAMP

(11 November 1922 - 31 May 2017)

The American cinematographer Fred J. Koenekamp, who has died aged 94, began his film career under contract to MGM as a camera assistant on Dangerous When Wet (1953), one of Esther Williams’s musical water features, followed by Underwater! with Jane Russell, Kismet, Raintree County, then Watusi, two Vincente Minnelli films, Bells Are Ringing and The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, and The Hook with Kirk Douglas. Koenekamp became a Director of Photography through television shows including Mission: Impossible and The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and he also worked on several of the last series’ spin-off movies. He photographed the films of many important directors, including Franklin J, Schaffner (Patton, Papillon, Yes, Giorgio, Islands in the Stream), Mark Robson (Happy Birthday, Wanda June), Carol Reed (The Last Warrior), Kirk Douglas (Posse), Sidney Poitier (Uptown Saturday Night), Ted Kotcheff (Fun With Dick and Jane), Irwin Allen (The Swarm), Franco Zeffirelli (The Champ), and Buzz Kulik (The Hunter, Steve McQueen’s last film). Most of his work in the 1990s was taken up with television movies. Fred Koenekamp was Oscar-nominated for Patton and Islands in the Stream and he won the Academy Award for The Towering Inferno. He was given a Lifetime Achievement Award by the American Society of Cinematographers in 2005. 

MICHAEL DARVELL