Cinematographer Allen Daviau, a five-time Academy Award nominee for films including Steven Spielberg’s E.T. the Extra Terrestrial and Empire of the Sun has died aged 77.

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Daviau died of coronavirus at the MPTF hospital in Los Angeles on Wednesday 15th of April.

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Daviau, was nominated for best cinematography Oscars for Spielberg movies The Color Purple,  Empire of the Sun, and E.T. the Extraterrestrial — along with two Barry Levinson films, Avalon and Bugsy.

He also shot the Gobi desert sequence for Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

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Spielberg said in a statement,

“In 1968, Allen and I started our careers side by side with the short film Amblin. Allen was a wonderful artist but his warmth and humanity were as powerful as his lens. He was a singular talent and a beautiful human being.”

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Daviau’s other credits include John Schlesinger’s The Falcon and the Snowman, Albert Brooks’ Defending Your Life and Peter Weir’s Fearless.

One of his final credits was the 2004 Van Helsing.