Karl Struss

Who was Karl Struss?

Karl Struss, A.S.C. was a photographer and a cinematographer of the 1900s through the 1950s. He was also one of the earliest pioneers of 3-D films. While he mostly worked on films, such as F. W. Murnau's Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans and Charles Chaplin's The Great Dictator and Limelight, he was also one of the cinematographers for the television series Broken Arrow and photographed 19 episodes of My Friend Flicka.

He was born in New York, New York and attended Columbia University, graduating with a B.A. in 1912. He studied photography with Clarence H. White, a faculty member at Columbia. His first successes came selling photographs to magazines including Vogue, Vanity Fair, and Harper's Bazaar.

In 1919, he moved to Los Angeles and signed on with Cecil B. DeMille as a cameraman and subsequently worked on many films. He was later also admitted to the American Society of Cinematographers.

In 1949, he began his work in "stereo cinematography", becoming one of the first proponents of that art form. Unfortunately, he did most of his 3D work in Italy and none of his films were subsequently released in 3D in the United States.