Bill Clothier,
Cameraman

    Lt. Col. William H. Clothier, U.S.A.F. flew 17 missions on "The Memphis Belle", and gave us 52 years of great cinematography.  He left us January 7, 1996 at 92 years young.  Perhaps better than anyone else, he knew how to film clouds, dust, and beautiful rivers.  He never said much on the set, but he was the one man to whom Pappy (John Ford) would listen.  "Give me time, Pappy, and I'll get it for you," he would say.  I suppose Pappy needed a great cameraman to continue filming with him up there in the clouds.

    What makes any great man, great?  I thought about that question many a time while making motion pictures.  Often, more than not, I would think about it while watching another great man just doing his job the best he could and loving it.  He was a cameraman and he called himself a "cameraman".  His name is Bill Clothier.  He received two Oscar® nominations for his work---The Alamo, and Cheyenne Autumn.

    That cameraman was up in the skies filming scenes for Wings while I was playing football at USC, and the movie won the first Oscar for the film industry.  When he came to work on our films, he brought some of this magic out of the skies and planted it on me.  Because he filmed 22 of my films, some of the best, he contributed to making me as much of who I am, as Pappy did when he yelled.................................