Charles Schoenbaum Explained

Charles Schoenbaum
Honorific Suffix:A. S. C.
Birthname:Charles Edgar Schoenbaum
Birth Date:28 April 1893
Birth Place:Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Death Place:Beverly Hills, California, U.S.
Occupation:Cinematographer
Spouse:Hazel Faye Pfeiffer Schoenbaum
Children:Vera Marie Schoenbaum Gebbert (playwright)(1916-2014); Charles Layton Schoenbaum (1917-1918).

Charles Edgar Schoenbaum A. S. C. (April 28, 1893 – January 21, 1951) was an American cinematographer. His known film credits began in 1917—although he probably had earlier films—and ended with his untimely death from cancer in 1951 at age 57. He was nominated for an Academy Award in 1949 for his work on Little Women.[1]

Early life

He was born in Los Angeles, California, to Anna A. Campbell (age 20) and William E. Schoenbaum (age 22).[2] His brother was Hollywood still photographer Emmett Schoenbaum, and the latter named a son after him.[3] [4]

Career

He began working for Fox Film sometime in the 1910s. Some of the stars he worked with closely were Elizabeth Taylor, W. C. Fields, Mickey Rooney, Gary Cooper, Norma Shearer, Wallace Reid, Abbott and Costello, Chester Morris, Wallace Beery, and many others.[5] [6] [7]

Schoenbaum worked on over 100 films, including several of the Lassie films in the late 1940s. Jeanette MacDonald (who was a dog lover), joked to him, "I've come to this, working with a dog!"[8] He was frequently a cinematographer for Cecil B. DeMille, Louis B. Mayer, Jesse Lasky, and his good friend Victor Fleming.[9] [10] [11] Schoenbaum was also known for Westerns, often shooting on location in the American Southwest and Canada.[12] In 1926 he was listed as a "staff cinematographer" for Lasky.[13]

Known for his prodigious work ethic, it even became a bit of a joke in the profession. For the new year's issue of The American CInematographer in 1922, the editors wrote "Charles E. Schoenbaum will call it a happy New Year if he can crank every one of the 365 days of 1922. If he can be guaranteed this Charles E. won't even ask for a lay-off between pictures. This boy certainly does love to work."[14] When director Rouben Mamoulian capriciously fired Oscar-winning cinematographer Charles Rosher from Summer Holiday (1948), he replaced him with Schoenbaum.[15] Cinematographer Karl Brown called Schoenbaum one of the "notable studio photographers," and interviewed him for a Photoplay article on technique.[16] His ongoing pictures and past work were often mentioned in the "In Camerafornia" column or other sections of the trade magazine The American Cinematographer.[17]

Other work

He sometimes registered screenplays under the pseudonym "Charles Edgar."[18] [19] He was also frequently uncredited on films when he was brought in on other people's projects to help fix problems. Some of his films are also missing because he worked under different versions of his name, C. Edgar Schoenbaum, Charles E. Schoenbaum, and C. E. Schoenbaum. For archival research purposes, sometimes it has been misspelled "Shoenbaum."[20]

Personal life

He married Hazel Faye Pfeiffer on February 11, 1915, in Los Angeles. They had a daughter, Vera Marie, on October 9, 1916, and a son, Charles Layton, in 1917. The son died at age six months. The daughter became a playwright, lived to be 98, and enjoyed sharing her stories of old Hollywood with various researchers. The family lived in Beverly Hills, where their daughter Vera attended Beverly Hills High School from 1930-34.[21]

Vera Schoenbaum (later Gebbert), under the pen name Vera Mathews, had one play on Broadway.[22] She worked for Broadway agent Audrey Wood, and worked closely with playwright Tennessee Williams. Her play Third Cousin was performed at Margo Jones' Theater-in-the-Round in 1947, where actor Jack Warden was just getting started, and also where Tennessee Williams debuted his first play.[23] She corresponded for years with C. S. Lewis, and is in his collected letters.[24] She was also Edward Baron Turk's source of information on her father and Jeanette MacDonald, and she once helped her friend MacDonald walk her dogs during breaks on the long train ride from California to New York.

He is buried at Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, California.

[25]

Partial filmography

Notes and References

  1. Web site: The 22nd Academy Awards (1950) Nominees and Winners . June 11, 2019. oscars.org.
  2. Web site: Brief Life History of Charles E. Schoenbaum . Family Search . The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.
  3. Book: Shields, David S. . Still: American Silent Motion Picture Photography . 2013 . University of Chicago Press . Chicago, Illinois . 9780226013435 . 141 .
  4. June 1945 . Emmett A. Schoenbaum, still cameraman in the publicity department . Action (magazine of wartime Hollywood) . 6 . 6 . 17 . The Internet Archive.
  5. Book: Fleming . E. J. . Wallace Reid: The Life and Death of a Hollywood Idol . McFarland . Jefferson, North Carolina . 9780786477258 . 167, 183, 190 . 2013.
  6. Book: Nollen . Scott Allen . Nollen . Yuyun Yuningsih . Chester Morris: His Life and Career . 2020 . McFarland . Jefferson, North Carolina . 9781476638393 . 63, 269 .
  7. News: Williams . Whitney . Pre-Release Impressions of New Pictures . Los Angeles Times . Page C8 . 13 May 1925. .
  8. Book: Turk . Edward Baron . Hollywood Diva: A Biography of Jeanette MacDonald . 1998 . University of California Press . 9780520924574 . Berkeley, California . 288.
  9. Book: Sragow . Michael . Victor Fleming: An American Movie Master . 2013 . University Press of Kentucky . 9780813144429 . Lexington, Kentucky . 583–84.
  10. Web site: DeMille . Cecil B. . Macpherson . Jeanie . The Woman God Forgot (silent film) . The Internet Archive . 28 October 1917.
  11. Web site: Fleming . Victor . Famous Players–Lasky Corporation . Empty Hands: Photoplay in Seven Reels . Library of Congress . US Government Printing Office . 1924.
  12. Graham . Mary . Father of the Western," and "War and Propaganda . A Stunning Backdrop: Alberta in the Movies, 1917-1960 . 2022 . 251–269 . University of Calgary Press, Bighorn Books . Calgary, Alberta, Canada . 10.2307/j.ctv30pnv04.16 . Cinematographer Charles Schoenbaum had crouched with Bill Oliver in a cement pit shooting thousands of bison stampeding overhead at Wainwright in 1923, for The Last Frontier..
  13. March 1926 . Perry Goes to Paramount . The American Cinematographer . VI . 12 . 20 . The Internet Archive.
  14. 1 January 1922 . In Nineteen Twenty-Two . The American Cinematographer . 2 . 24 . 11 . The Internet Archive.
  15. Book: Birnes, William J. . The Life and Times of Mickey Rooney . 2015 . New York . Gallery Books . 978-1-5011-0096-3 . 264.
  16. Sewell . Jameson . August 1925 . What is Camera Beauty? Some leading cameramen select the perfect photographic types . Photoplay . 28 . 3 . 38–39, 108 . The Internet Archive.
  17. Book: The American Cinematographer . 1 December 1921 . American Society of Cinematographers, Inc. . Media History Digital Library . 2, No. 22 . Hollywood, California . 14.
  18. Book: Library of Congress . Catalogue of Title Entries of Books and Other Articles Entered in the Office of the Register of Copyrights . 1933 . US Government Printing Office . Washington, DC . 328.
  19. Book: Library of Congress . Catalog of Copyright Entries. Part 1. [C] Group 3. Dramatic Composition and Motion Pictures. New Series ]. 1941 . Library of Congress Copyright Office . Washington, DC . 51, 59, 71, 75, 125 .
  20. Casts of Current Photoplays: On the High Seas . Photoplay Magazine . 4 January 2011 . 22-23 . 106 .
  21. News: 2016 . Beverly Hills High Lights . February 20, 2024 . 52 . 36.
  22. Web site: Mathews . Vera . Make Yourself at Home . Internet Broadway Database . The Broadway League . 13 September 1945.
  23. Book: Gerem . Yves . A Marmac Guide to Dallas . 2004 . Pelican Publishing . Elmwood, Louisiana . 9781589801998 . 244 .
  24. Book: Hooper, Walter . The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis, Volume 3: Narnia, Cambridge, and Joy, 1950 - 1963 . 2004 . HarperCollins . New York . 1759 . 9780060819224 .
  25. Book: Turk, Edward Baron . Hollywood Diva: A Biography of Jeanette MacDonald . 1998 . University of California Press . 978-0-520-21202-2 . Berkeley, California . 222, 288.
  26. Web site: Lasky Corporation . Famous Players . The Mystery Girl. Motion picture copyright descriptions collection. Class L, 1912-1977 . Motion Picture, Broadcasting And Recorded Sound Division: Motion picture copyright descriptions collection . The Library of Congress.
  27. Based on the novel Vicky Van and sometimes listed that way, see the movie poster.
  28. Web site: Too Much Johnson . Library&&of&&Congress.
  29. Web site: Famous Players . Lasky Corporation . The Heart Raider. Motion picture copyright descriptions collection. Class L, 1912-1977. . Motion Picture, Broadcasting And Recorded Sound Division: Motion picture copyright descriptions collection . The Library of Congress.
  30. Web site: Famous Players . Lasky Corporation . Mr. Billings Spends His Dime. Motion picture copyright descriptions collection. Class L, 1912-1977. . Motion Picture, Broadcasting And Recorded Sound Division: Motion picture copyright descriptions collection . The Library of Congress.
  31. Web site: de Groat . Greta . Clara Kimball Young: "Women Go on Forever" . Unsung Divas of the Silent Screen . Stanford University . 2012.

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