William A. Fraker

William A. Fraker

Birth : 1923-09-29, Los Angeles, California, USA

Death : 2010-05-31

History

William Ashman Fraker (September 29, 1923 – May 31, 2010) was an American cinematographer, film director and producer. He was nominated five times for the Academy Award for Best Cinematography. In 2000, he received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Society of Cinematographers (ASC) honoring his career. As cinematographer, his films include The President's Analyst (1967), Rosemary's Baby (1968), Bullitt (1968), Paint Your Wagon (1969), The Day of the Dolphin (1973), Coonskin (1975), Looking For Mr. Goodbar (1977), Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977), Heaven Can Wait (1978), 1941 (1979), WarGames (1983), Irreconcilable Differences (1984), Murphy's Romance (1985), Tombstone (1993), and Street Fighter (1994). He directed three theatrical films, Monte Walsh (1970), A Reflection of Fear (1971), and The Legend of the Lone Ranger (1981), as well as several television series. Description above from the Wikipedia article William A. Fraker, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Profile

William A. Fraker

Movies

Waking Up in Reno
Director of Photography
Candy and Lonnie Earl are just crazy about each other. The problem: she's married to Roy and he's married to Darlene. So far it's been a secret affair. But that's about to change, because this foursome is driving cross-country and headed for some big surprises.
Polanski y los ojos del mal
Himself
Town & Country
Director of Photography
Porter Stoddard is a well-known New York architect who is at a crossroads... a nexus where twists and turns lead to myriad missteps, some with his wife Ellie, others with longtime friends Mona and her husband Griffin. Deciding which direction to take often leads to unexpected encounters with hilarious consequences.
Rules of Engagement
Director of Photography
A Marine Colonel is brought to court-martial after ordering his men to fire on demonstrators surrounding the American embassy in Yemen.
Vegas Vacation
Director of Photography
The Griswold family hits the road again for a typically ill-fated vacation, this time to the glitzy mecca of slots and showgirls—Las Vegas.
The Island of Dr. Moreau
Director of Photography
A shipwrecked sailor stumbles upon a mysterious island and is shocked to discover that a brilliant scientist and his lab assistant have found a way to combine human and animal DNA—with horrific results.
Father of the Bride Part II
Director of Photography
Just when George Banks has recovered from his daughter's wedding, he receives the news that she's pregnant ... and that George's wife is expecting too. He was planning on selling their home, but that's a plan that—like George—will have to change with the arrival of both a grandchild and a kid of his own.
Death in Small Doses
Director of Photography
One night Nancy Lyon awakes in pain and dies shortly after - poisoned with arsenic. Her family immediately suspects her husband Richard, who left her temporarily the year before because of an affair. Especially Nancy's brother is keen on getting the children away from the suspected murderer. All evidence points against Richard, but in court Richard surprisingly presents proof that his wife had depressions and maybe killed herself - or are these proofs just fake? -- Depicts an authentic case.
Street Fighter
Director of Photography
Col. Guile and various other martial arts heroes fight against the tyranny of Dictator M. Bison and his cohorts.
There Goes My Baby
Director of Photography
It's the summer of 1965, and the members of the graduating class of upscale Westwood High are eager to reinvent themselves. Valedictorian Mary Beth wants to attend a liberal university. Surfer bum Stick plans to enlist to fight in Vietnam. Calvin lives in the poor Watts section of Los Angeles, which is slowly erupting in violence. As the summer nights grow long, they'll all be forced to make decisions that will affect the rest of their lives.
Tombstone
Director of Photography
Legendary marshal Wyatt Earp, now a weary gunfighter, joins his brothers Morgan and Virgil to pursue their collective fortune in the thriving mining town of Tombstone. But Earp is forced to don a badge again and get help from his notorious pal Doc Holliday when a gang of renegade brigands and rustlers begins terrorizing the town.
Visions of Light
Self
Cameramen and women discuss the craft and art of cinematography and of the "DP" (the director of photography), illustrating their points with clips from 100 films, from Birth of a Nation to Do the Right Thing. Themes: the DP tells people where to look; changes in movies (the arrival of sound, color, and wide screens) required creative responses from DPs; and, these artisans constantly invent new equipment and try new things, with wonderful results. The narration takes us through the identifiable studio styles of the 30s, the emergence of noir, the New York look, and the impact of Europeans. Citizen Kane, The Conformist, and Gordon Willis get special attention.
Honeymoon in Vegas
Director of Photography
On her deathbed, a mother makes her son promise never to get married, which scars him with psychological blocks to a commitment with his girlfriend. They finally decide to tie the knot in Vegas, but a wealthy gambler arranges for the man to lose $65K in a poker game and offers to clear the debt for a weekend with his fiancée.
Memoirs of an Invisible Man
Director of Photography
After a freak accident, an invisible yuppie runs for his life from a treacherous CIA official while trying to cope with his new life.
The Freshman
Director of Photography
After a film student gets his belongings stolen, he meets a mobster bearing a startling resemblance to a certain cinematic godfather. Soon, he finds himself caught up in a caper involving endangered species and fine dining.
An Innocent Man
Director of Photography
Jimmie Rainwood was minding his own business when two corrupt police officers (getting an address wrong) burst into his house, expecting to find a major drug dealer. Rainwood is shot, and the officers frame him as a drug dealer. Rainwood is convicted of drug dealing, based on the perjured evidence of a police informant. Thrown into a seedy jail, fighting to prove his innocence is diffucult when he has to deal with the realities of prison life, where everyone claims they were framed.
Chances Are
Director of Photography
Louie Jeffries is happily married to Corinne. On their first anniversary, Louie is killed crossing the road. Louie is reincarnated as Alex Finch, and twenty years later, fate brings Alex and Louie's daughter, Miranda, together. It's not until Alex is invited to Louie's home that he begins to remember his former life, wife and best friend. Of course, there's also the problem that he's attracted to Louie's/his own daughter.
Baby Boom
Director of Photography
The life of super-yuppie J.C. is thrown into turmoil when she inherits a baby from a distant relative.
Burglar
Director of Photography
Bernice "Bernie" Rhodenbarr is a burglar by trade, and she runs a bookstore as well. Her friend Carl Hefler is a dog groomer. After a successful burglary, it's discovered that a dead body was in the house she burgled. As she's the only one who can be placed at the scene of the crime, she has to use her criminal skills to clear her name of the murder AND avoid getting charged with the burglary.
SpaceCamp
Director of Photography
Andie Bergstrom, an astronaut eagerly awaiting her first trip to space, runs a summer camp for teenagers with her NASA-employed husband, Zach. One night during an engine test, Andie and four teenage campers are accidentally shot into space. Together, the group -- which includes Kathryn, a pilot-in-training, and Tish, a ditz with a perfect memory -- must work together to operate the spacecraft and return home.
Murphy's Romance
Director of Photography
Emma, a divorced single mother seeking to start her life over, moves to a small town in Arizona. She befriends Murphy, the older local pharmacist, but things turn complicated when her ex-husband shows up.
Fever Pitch
Director of Photography
An investigative journalist gets hooked on the subject of his inquiry — organized gambling.
Protocol
Director of Photography
A Washington waitress saves the Emir of Ohtar's life, launching her diplomatic career and a scandal.
Irreconcilable Differences
"Gabrielle" Cinematographer
Alternating between the past and the present, a precocious little girl sues her selfish, career-driven parents for emancipation, surprising them both.
Irreconcilable Differences
Director of Photography
Alternating between the past and the present, a precocious little girl sues her selfish, career-driven parents for emancipation, surprising them both.
WarGames
Director of Photography
High School student David Lightman has a talent for hacking. But while trying to hack into a computer system to play unreleased video games, he unwittingly taps into the Defense Department's war computer and initiates a confrontation of global proportions. Together with his girlfriend and a wizardly computer genius, David must race against time to outwit his opponent and prevent a nuclear Armageddon.
The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas
Director of Photography
The town sheriff and a madame team up to stop a television evangelist from shutting down the local whorehouse, the famed "Chicken Ranch."
Sharky's Machine
Director of Photography
Police officer Tom Sharky gets busted back to working vice, where he happens upon a scandalous conspiracy involving a local politician. Sharky's new 'machine' gathers evidence while Sharky falls in love with a woman he has never met.
The Legend of the Lone Ranger
Director
When the young Texas Ranger, John Reid, is the sole survivor of an ambush arranged by the militaristic outlaw leader, Butch Cavendich, he is rescued by an old childhood Comanche friend, Tonto. When he recovers from his wounds, he dedicates his life to fighting the evil that Cavendich represents. To this end, John Reid becomes the great masked western hero, The Lone Ranger. With the help of Tonto, the pair go to rescue President Grant when Cavendich takes him hostage.
Divine Madness
Director of Photography
Divine Madness is a 1980 concert film directed by Michael Ritchie, and featuring Bette Midler during her 1979 concert at Pasadena's Civic Auditorium. The 94-minute film features Midler's stand-up comedy routines as well as 16 songs, including "Big Noise From Winnetka," "Paradise," "Shiver Me Timbers," "Fire Down Below," "Stay With Me," "My Mother’s Eyes," "Chapel of Love/Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy," "Do You Want to Dance," "You Can’t Always Get What You Want/I Shall Be Released", "The E-Street Shuffle/Summer (The First Time)/"Leader of the Pack" and "The Rose".
The Hollywood Knights
Director of Photography
Led by their comedic and pranking leader, Newbomb Turk, the Hollywood Knights car gang raise hell throughout Beverly Hills on Halloween Night, 1965. Everything from drag racing to Vietnam to high school love.
1941
Director of Photography
In the days after the attack on Pearl Harbor, panic grips California, where a military officer leads a mob chasing a Japanese sub.
Old Boyfriends
Director of Photography
When her marriage falls apart, a psychiatrist seeks out those of her former boyfriends who left the biggest impact on her life, mostly in a bad way.
Heaven Can Wait
Director of Photography
Joe Pendleton is a quarterback preparing to lead his team to the superbowl when he is almost killed in an accident. An overanxious angel plucks him to heaven only to discover that he wasn't ready to die, and that his body has been cremated. A new body must be found, and that of a recently-murdered millionaire is chosen. His wife and accountant—the murderers—are confused by this development, as he buys the L.A. Rams in order to once again quarterback them into the Superbowl.
American Hot Wax
Director of Photography
This is the story loosely based on Cleveland disc jockey Alan Freed, who introduced rock'n'roll to teenage American radio audiences in the 1950s. Freed was a source of great controversy: criticized by conservatives for corrupting youth with the "devil's music"; hated by racists for promoting African American music for white consumption; persecuted by law enforcement officials and finally brought down by the "payola" scandals.
Looking for Mr. Goodbar
Director of Photography
A dedicated schoolteacher spends her nights cruising bars, looking for abusive men with whom she can engage in progressively violent sexual encounters.
Exorcist II: The Heretic
Director of Photography
Bizarre nightmares plague Regan MacNeil four years after her possession and exorcism. Has the demon returned? And if so, can the combined faith and knowledge of a Vatican investigator and a hypnotic research specialist free her from its grasp?
The Killer Inside Me
Director of Photography
Haunted by visions from his abusive childhood, Montana deputy sheriff Lou Ford gradually exhibits the signs of a homicidal schizophrenic.
Gator
Director of Photography
After his release from prison, notorious ex-con and moonshine distiller Gator McKlusky moves in with his father in a cabin in the Okefenokee Swamp. His bootlegging plans are cut short, however, when a federal agent tells McKlusky that he will lose custody of his 9-year-old daughter unless he helps bring down local crime lord Bama McCall. McKlusky enlists the help of reporter Aggie Maybank and a few local eccentrics to bring down McCall's empire.
Lipstick
Additional Director of Photography
An aspiring avant-garde composer rapes a fashion model. When she takes him to court, she's slut-shamed by the defense and the man is exonerated. But justice will be served.
Coonskin
Director of Photography
Brother Rabbit, Brother Bear, and Preacher Fox rise to the top of the crime ranks in Harlem by going up against a con-man, a racist cop, and the Mafia.
Aloha, Bobby and Rose
Director of Photography
Bobby and Rose, two youngsters who are in love, have to run away from home when they are falsely accused to have committed a robbery and an assassination.
Rancho Deluxe
Director of Photography
Jack McKee and Cecil Colson are two bumbling drifters who make a living by rustling cattle from other peoples herds in the wilds of Montana. Jack is from a wealthy background but left his parents as he resented their posh lives, and Cecil is a Native American half-breed seeking his own path in life away from his father. Both hustle and rustle their way in the world by targeting cattle owned by wealthy ranch owner John Brown. Frustrated that someone is killing his cattle, John hires a pair of ranch hands Burt and Curt to find the rustlers. When Brown realizes he cannot trust his two inept ranch hands, he turns to the grizzled former rustler Henry Beige to find the cattle thieves, while Jack and Cecil are always one step ahead of them, not realizing that their luck will eventually run out sometime.
Conversation with Fritz Lang
Director of Photography
American director William Friedkin interviewed Austrian director Fritz Lang on February 21st and 24th, 1975. Lang died August 2nd, 1976.
The Day of the Dolphin
Director of Photography
Dr. Jake Terrell, who has been training a pair of dolphins for many years, has had a breakthrough. He has taught his dolphins to speak and understand English, although they do have a limited vocabulary. When the dolphins are stolen, he discovers they're to be used in an assassination attempt. Now he is in a race to discover who is the target, and where the dolphins are, before the attempt is carried out.
Fade-In
Director of Photography
A sophisticated Hollywood film editor, on location for a film she is working on, falls for a local cowboy who is hired to work on the film.
A Reflection of Fear
Director
A young girl lives with her mother and grandmother. One day her estranged father returns home with a female companion he introduces as his fiance. Soon the girl finds herself in the midst of strange goings-on, which evolve into a web of crime and murder.
Dusty and Sweets McGee
The Cellist
A "straight" couple dabbles in drugs and become heroin addicts.
Dusty and Sweets McGee
Director of Photography
A "straight" couple dabbles in drugs and become heroin addicts.
Monte Walsh
Director
Monte Walsh is an aging cowboy facing the ending days of the Wild West era. As barbed wire and railways steadily eliminate the need for the cowboy, Monte and his friends are left with fewer and fewer options. New work opportunities are available to them, but the freedom of the open prarie is what they long for. Eventually, they all must say goodbye to the lives they knew, and try to make a new start.
Paint Your Wagon
Director of Photography
A Michigan farmer and a prospector form a partnership in the California gold country. Their adventures include buying and sharing a wife, hijacking a stage, kidnapping six prostitutes, and turning their mining camp into a boom town. Along the way there is plenty of drinking, gambling, and singing. They even find time to do some creative gold mining.
Bullitt
Director of Photography
Senator Walter Chalmers is aiming to take down mob boss Pete Ross with the help of testimony from the criminal's hothead brother Johnny, who is in protective custody in San Francisco under the watch of police lieutenant Frank Bullitt. When a pair of mob hitmen enter the scene, Bullitt follows their trail through a maze of complications and double-crosses. This thriller includes one of the most famous car chases ever filmed.
Rosemary's Baby
Director of Photography
A young couple, Rosemary and Guy, moves into an infamous New York apartment building, known by frightening legends and mysterious events, with the purpose of starting a family.
The President's Analyst
Director of Photography
At first, Dr. Sidney Schaefer feels honored and thrilled to be offered the job of the President's Analyst. But then the stress of the job and the paranoid spies that come with a sensitive government position get to him, and he runs away. Now spies from all over the world are after him, either to get him for their own side or to kill him and prevent someone else from getting him.
The Fox
Director of Photography
Jill Banford and Ellen March have built a good life together on a hardscrabble Canadian farm. Then handsome Paul Grenfell enters their isolated world, and sets friend against friend. But is Paul the real trouble between Jill and Ellen? Or has his presence merely awakened the unspoken, unexplored sexual tension that always existed between the women?
Games
Director of Photography
A mysterious woman in black moves in with married Manhattan thrill-seekers and helps one trick the other.
Incubus
Director of Photography
On a strange island inhabited by demons and spirits, a man battles the forces of evil.
The Ghost of Sierra de Cobre
Camera Operator
Terrified of being buried alive, a woman installs a phone in her crypt. A few days after her death, the phone suddenly rings and paranormal investigator Nelson Orion is brought in to probe the case.