hatto2

De kaart ging op 7 december 1937 van Noordwijk naar Hollywood. Naar Mr. And Mrs. Karl Struss. Struss was toen al een befaamd cameraman, die in 1927 de allereerste Oscar kreeg die toen voor camerawerk werd uitgereikt. Daarna zou hij nog aan vele andere befaamde films meewerken onder beroemde regisseurs als Charles Chaplin, Cecil B. de Mille en D.W. Griffith. Struss.

De befaamde Internet Movie Database (IMDb) besteedt relatief veel aandacht aan Struss:

Oscar-winning cinematographer Karl Struss was born on November 30, 1886, in New York City. He became a professional photographer after studying photography with Clarence H. White and became part of the group associated with the great photographer Alfred Stieglitz. His photographs, which he characterized as “pictorial” rather than “fashion”, were published in leading magazines, including “Harper’s Bazaar,” “Vanity Fair” and “Vogue.” Struss moved to Los Angeles in 1919 to practice his craft as a still photographer. He subsequently was hired by producer-director Cecil B. DeMille to serve as a cameraman in his second-unit. Along with Charles Rosher, he won the first Oscar ever awarded for cinematography at the first Academy Awards, for photographing Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927) for F.W. Murnau. He was nominated for the Academy Award three more times for his cinematography. In addition to DeMille and Murnau, Struss worked with such greats as Charles Chaplin and D.W. Griffith. After being the director of photography on Mary Pickford’s Sparrows (1926), he was the lighting cameraman on her first sound film, Coquette (1929), for which she won a Best Actress Academy Award. He worked with other top stars such as Fredric March, who won an Oscar on the Struss-photographed Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931), for which Struss was also Oscar-nominated. Karl Struss was not only one of the first cinematographers to work in color (he shot in two-strip Technicolor on the original screen version of Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1925)), he also was a pioneer in three-dimensional cinematography in the 1940s and 1950s. Karl Struss died on December 15, 1981. He was 95 years old.

De kaart was afkomstig van ene ‘Hatto’, maar kenners van dit blog weten wie Hatto was: telg uit het geslacht van de Tappenbecks die Huis ter Duin bestierden. Hatto was begin Jaren Twintig al naar de Verenigde Staten vertrokken, om er te gaan studeren. Maar al snel moet hij in de filmwereld terechtgekomen zijn. Ook als cameraman, zij het in minder bekende films en onder minder bekende regisseurs. Hij moet toen ook zelf naar Hollywood zijn verhuisd. Hij is nadien verschillende malen in Noordwijk terug geweest, meestal voor even. Dat was blijkbaar ook het geval in 1937, vandaar deze kaart. Bij de film “Preview Muder Mystery” werkten Hatto en Karl nauw samen. Hatto kreeg in de IMDb een kleiner verhaal, maar toch:

Hatto Tappenbeck was born on July 11, 1896 in Netherlands. He is known for his work on Song o’ My Heart (1930) and The Preview Murder Mystery (1936). He died on March 30, 1970 in Los Angeles County, California, USA.