Ronald Charles Taylor

BSC A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University ...

(27 October 1924 – 3 August 2018) was a British cinematographer, best known for his collaborations with directors Richard Attenborough and Dario Argento. Throughout his career, he was nominated for two BAFTA Awards for Best Cinematography and won an

Academy Award The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international film industry. The awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the entertainment ind ...

for his work on ''Gandhi'' (1982), which he shared with Billy Williams.

Life and career

Taylor was born in

Hampstead, London Hampstead () is an area in London, which lies northwest of Charing Cross, and extends from the A5 road (Roman Watling Street) to Hampstead Heath, a large, hilly expanse of parkland. The area forms the northwest part of the London Borough ...

and entered the film industry in his late teens working for

Gainsborough Pictures Gainsborough Pictures was a British film studio based on the south bank of the Regent's Canal, in Poole Street, Hoxton in the former Metropolitan Borough of Shoreditch, north London. Gainsborough Studios was active between 1924 and 1951. The com ...

at Lime Grove in Shepherd's Bush. Taylor's first film was as a clapper boy on '' The Young Mr. Pitt'' (1942). That same year he entered the Merchant Navy. After the end of the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

returned to the film industry. He became a camera operator and went on to become a director of photography, winning an Oscar for ''

Gandhi Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (; ; 2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948), popularly known as Mahatma Gandhi, was an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalist Quote: "... marks Gandhi as a hybrid cosmopolitan figure who transformed ... anti- ...

'' (1982). Taylor's final film was the Dario Argento-directed

giallo film In Italian cinema, ''Giallo'' (; plural ''gialli'', from ''giallo'', Italian for yellow) is a genre of mystery fiction and thrillers that often contains slasher, crime fiction, psychological thriller, psychological horror, sexploitation, and, l ...

'' Sleepless'' (2001), after which he retired to Spain. He is featured in the book ''Conversations with Cinematographers'' by David A Ellis, published by Scarecrow Press.

Selected filmography

Notes

External links

*
Ronnie Taylor BSC – British Cinematographer
1924 births 2018 deaths British cinematographers Best Cinematographer Academy Award winners British expatriates in Spain People from Hampstead {{UK-film-bio-stub