Biography
Harold G. 'Hal' Rosson was an American cinematographer whose career spanned the silent era to the late 1960s. Born in New York City on 6 April 1895, he began in film in 1908 as an actor at Vitagraph Studios in Brooklyn before moving into camera work. He joined Metro Pictures in 1914 and later worked at Famous Players and with Mary Pickford.
Rosson is best known for his Technicolor photography on The Wizard of Oz (1939) and Singin' in the Rain (1952), both for MGM, where he was under contract from the 1930s. Other notable credits include The Asphalt Jungle (1950), On the Town (1949), Duel in the Sun (1946) and El Dorado (1966). In 1936 he shared an honorary Academy Award with W. Howard Greene for the colour cinematography of The Garden of Allah (1936).
He came from a film family: his brothers Arthur and Richard were directors and his sister Helene was an actress. Rosson retired in the late 1950s but returned for his final feature in 1966; he died in Palm Beach, Florida, on 6 September 1988.
