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