Full disclosure: I was somewhat displeased with last Tuesday’s post due to the lack of detail I was able to provide regarding the life and career of Lester White, ASC. Fortunately, a deeper dive surfaced the missing bits. Have a look at this article from the September 1946 issue of American Cinematographer. Written by W.G.C. Bosco (now, there’s a name I’d like to research), it fleshes out what I had previously assessed to be a relatively common career.
Rather than reduce its contents to a short paragraph or two, I’m presenting the piece unabridged so that you might appreciate the flowery prose of the period. I find that style charming!
Even fuller disclosure: Mention is made of White’s Brooklyn provenance and how as a boy he climbed a fence to watch the goings-on at the old Vitagraph Studio. Located on Avenue M, not far from Coney Island Avenue, the original buildings (modernized and modified) remain in place today. When I was a kid, my grandparents lived a few blocks away and I used to pass what was then known as an NBC television facility every day on my walk to grammar school on Avenue O.
Along with Linwood Dunn, ASC (see the post dated, October 17, 2023), that makes three of us who grew up within a stone’s throw of each other (though separated by fifty-to-sixty years). I don’t know what that’s supposed to mean, but maybe it was caused by something in the water…
