Personal info
Known for

Cinematographer

Gender

Male

Birthday

15 November

Location

California, United States

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Richard H. Kline

Biography

Richard Howard Kline ASC (November 15, 1926 – August 7, 2018) was an American cinematographer, known for his collaborations with directors Richard Fleischer and Michael Winner

 

He was a second-generation filmmaker, being the son of cinematographer Benjamin H. Kline and the nephew of ASC co-founder Phil Rosen

 

He was nominated twice for an Academy Award for Best Cinematography, for Camelot (1968) and King Kong (1976Kline was born in Los Angeles, California in 1926; his father was cinematographer Benjamin H. Kline.

 

After Kline graduated from high school in 1943 at the age of 16, his father got him a job as a slate boy working for Columbia Pictures the same year, and one of the films he worked on as a slate boy was Cover Girl.

 

A year later, in 1944, Kline joined the U.S. Navy, serving from 1944 to 1946. By the time he had joined the Navy, he was already a first assistant cameraman. 

 

Kline was shipped out to the Pacific Theatre, where he would film battles out on the ocean. Kline left the Navy in 1946 and went to Paris in 1948 after he could not find a job in Hollywood.

 

After graduating from Sorbonne University with a degree in Fine Art and Fine History, he married and returned to Hollywood, and returned to Columbia in 1951, working first as a camera assistant, and then a camera operator. 

 

Kline began working as a cinematographer in 1963, and in 1967, he became a member of the American Society of Cinematographers.