Orville Nix

Who was Orville Nix?

Orville Orhel Nix was a witness to the assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963. His filming of the event is considered nearly as important as the more famous Abraham Zapruder film.

Nix, reported to have only a fourth grade education, was an air conditioning engineer working for the General Services Administration in Dallas. On November 22, 1963, he walked from his office in the Terminal Annex building located on the south side of Dealey Plaza to the northwest corner of the intersection of Main Street and Houston Street with a Keystone Auto-Zoom Model K-810 8 mm movie camera. Nix filmed the motorcade as it entered the Plaza, then quickly moved 20 to 60 feet west of Houston Street to the south curb of Main Street where he captured the last part of the assassination and the grassy knoll in the background. Shortly after the motorcade had left Dealey Plaza, he filmed people running from Main Street to Elm Street.

Orville Nix's film is darker than the others, because he used Type A indoor film, and did not have the proper filter to correct this.

The Nix film was obtained as a result of a notice that the FBI gave to film processing plants in the Dallas area, that the FBI would be interested in obtaining or knowing about any film they processed relating to the assassination. When Nix heard about this from his processor, he delivered the film to the FBI office in Dallas on December 1, 1963. It was returned to him three days later.