Rudolph Maté

Rudolph Maté (born Rudolf Mayer; 21 January 1898 – 27 October 1964) was a Polish-Hungarian-American cinematographer, film director and film producer who worked as cameraman and cinematographer in Hungary, Austria, Germany, France and the United Kingdom, before moving to Hollywood in the mid 1930s.

Life and career[]

Born in Kraków (then in the Grand Duchy of Krakow, Austro-Hungarian Empire, now in Poland) into a Jewish family, Maté began in the film business after his graduation from the University of Budapest. He worked as an assistant cameraman in Hungary and later throughout Europe, sometimes with colleague Karl Freund. Maté worked on several of Carl Th. Dreyer's films, including The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928) and Vampyr (1932).

He worked as cinematographer on Hollywood films from the mid-1930s, including Dodsworth (1936), the Laurel and Hardy feature Our Relations (1936) and Stella Dallas (1937). He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Cinematography in five consecutive years, for Alfred Hitchcock's Foreign Correspondent (1940), Alexander Korda's That Hamilton Woman (1941), Sam Wood's The Pride of the Yankees (1942), Zoltan Korda's Sahara (1943), and Charles Vidor's Cover Girl (1944).

In 1947, he turned to directing films; his credits include the film noir D.O.A. (1949), No Sad Songs for Me (1950), When Worlds Collide (1951), and the epic The 300 Spartans (1962).

Some sixteen months after completing his last film, a low budget, limited-release comedy shot in Greece and scored by Manos Hatzidakis,^[1] Maté suffered a heart attack while in Hollywood and died on 27 October 1964, at the age of 66.^[2]

Filmography[]

As director[]

As producer[]

• The Return of October (1948)
• The 300 Spartans (1962)
• Aliki my love (1963)

As cinematographer[]

References[]

External links[]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Rudolph Maté.

• Rudolph Maté at Find a Grave
• Rudolph Maté at IMDb
• Rudolph Maté in the AFI Catalog
• Rudolph Maté in the Internet Encyclopedia of Cinematographers