Freddie Young

Posted by Aldo Pusey on Friday, September 27, 2024

Freddie Young, the three-time Oscar-winning cinematographer of “Lawrence of Arabia,” “Doctor Zhivago” and “Ryan’s Daughter,” died Tuesday in London of natural causes. He was 96.

Born in London in 1902, Young left school at 14 and worked at a munitions factory before becoming an apprentice in the film industry.

His first film credit, as assistant cameraman, came on “Rob Roy,” and he had advanced to the position of lighting cameraman by the late ’20s.

In 1937 Young, who was usually listed as F.A. Young onscreen, worked on his first big-budget film, director Herbert Wilcox’s historical drama “Victoria the Great.” The film’s final reel was in color, launching Young’s career as an illustrious color cinematographer.

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He secured his position among the first rank of British cameramen with such films as “Goodbye, Mr. Chips,” Michael Powell’s “Forty-Ninth Parallel,” “The Young Mr. Pitt,” “Caesar and Cleopatra,” “The Winslow Boy,” “Edward, My Son” and “Treasure Island.”

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Working exclusively in color from then on, and establishing himself as a specialist in spectacular exterior work, Young shot the 1952 “Ivanhoe,” for which he received his first Oscar nomination, John Ford’s “Mogambo” in 1953, “Knights of the Round Table,” Vincente Minnelli’s 1956 “Lust for Life,” George Cukor’s “Bhowani Junction,” “The Inn of the Sixth Happiness” and King Vidor’s “Solomon and Sheba.”

Young reached a pinnacle of color cinematography working with David Lean for the first time on the 1962 “Lawrence of Arabia,” one of the screen’s greatest epics, for which Young won his first Oscar at the age of 60. His subsequent collaborations with Lean on “Dr. Zhivago” (1965) and the “Ryan’s Daughter” (1970) also garnered him Academy Awards.

Among his other later films were Richard Brooks’ 1965 “Lord Jim,” Sidney Lumet’s “The Deadly Affair,” the Lewis Gilbert-helmed James Bond film “You Only Live Twice” (1967), “Battle of Britain,” “Nicholas and Alexandra,” “The Tamarind Seed,” “Permission to Kill,” Cukor’s “The Blue Bird,” “Stevie,” “Bloodline,” “Rough Cut” and “Richard’s Things.”

He won an Emmy for a television version of “Macbeth,” and his other TV work included “Ike.”

In 1972 he was named a Fellow of the British Academy for Film & Television Arts — the only person to receive that honor since Alfred Hitchcock.

In 1986, Young directed his only film, “Arthur’s Hallowed Ground,” about an elderly man’s devotion to his cricket field. He had been working on his memoirs and a book, “Seventy Light Years: A Life in Movies,” which is scheduled for publication in February.

Young is survived by his second wife, Joan, their son, David, and two children from his first marriage. His first wife, Marjorie, died in 1963.

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