Volume III: Biographies

HALLER, Ernest

Studio employee (1912-1913)

Thanhouser Career Synopsis: Ernest Haller was a Thanhouser employee in 1912 and 1913.

Biographical Notes: Ernest Haller was born in Los Angeles, California on May 31, 1896. In 1912 he was on the Thanhouser staff, which may have been one of his first positions in films, for he was just 16 years old at the time. Little is known of the details of his Thanhouser employment, other than that it furnished the springboard for a life of cinematic accomplishment. He attended the Thanhouser outing held on September 7, 1912, and was on the reception committee for the Thanhouser employees' masquerade ball held at Germania Hall, New Rochelle, on Monday evening, March 31, 1913. By 1914 he was with American Biograph in California, and after spending a year there, became a cameraman. At one time he was also with Vitagraph on the West Coast. For Kalem's lengthy 1914-1917 The Hazards of Helen serial he filmed many episodes. Among the stars he photographed in his early years were the Talmadge sisters, Rudolph Valentino, and Pauline Starke.

In later years he photographed dozens of films for other studios, including First National, which later became affiliated with Warner Bros. He especially enjoyed photographing Bette Davis, he said, and of his subjects, he considered the most beautiful to have been Hope Hampton. He won an Academy Award for his work with the 1939 film, Gone With The Wind. Among his other credits were Princess O'Rourke, Always Leave Them Laughing, The Flame and the Arrow, Carnival Story, and Rebel Without a Cause. Ernest Haller died at the age of 74 on October 21, 1970, in an automobile accident near his home in Marina Del Rey, California.

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