James Glennon

American cinematographer and something of a Renaissance man. The son of famed cinematographer Bert Glennon, James Glennon and his brothers learned photography at their father's feet. (Their mother was script supervisor Mary Coleman.) James Glennon began work in the Warner Bros. mail room, where he often was assigned to make deliveries to studio head Jack L. Warner because the other mail clerks were afraid of Warner. Warner advised Glennon to buy a motion picture camera and rent it out, offering his own services for free. Glennon did so, and thus initiated his career as a cinematographer with Jaws of Death (1977). He continued to work as a camera operator on other cinematographers' films, including The Conversation (1974), Ordinary People (1980), and Altered States (1980), before coming to notice as cinematographer on the groundbreaking El Norte (1983). He worked steadily thereafter. He filmed My Wicked, Wicked Ways: The Legend of Errol Flynn (1985), the story of the actor his own father had photographed in four films. He partnered with director Alexander Payne on three films: Citizen Ruth (1996), Election (1999), and About Schmidt (2002). He won an Emmy Award in 2005 for an episode of Deadwood (2004), the Western series for which he was principal cinematographer for its entire run. He had widely varied interests. He served repeatedly as a judge in the Nicholl Fellowship in Screenwriting of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences. He operated Malibu Water Resources, a water aeration program, and he farmed clams in the Pacific Northwest. He was extraordinarily beloved of his crews and casts for his eternal optimism and unstinting praise and encouragement. He died unexpectedly on October 19, 2006, from a blood clot resulting from surgery for prostate cancer.