Walter Lassally

Walter Lassally was a German cinematographer best known for his Oscar-winning work on Zorba the Greek, the 1964 film about an uptight English writer, starring Anthony Quinn.

Associated with the Free Cinema movement that sprang from the U.K. in the 1950s, Lassally also lensed Tom Jones, winner of the best picture Oscar in 1964, and worked six times each with directors James Ivory and Michael Cacoyannis.

Additionally, Lassally shot episodes of the anthology series Playhouse 90, Great Performances, CBS Children’s Mystery Theatre and American Playhouse. He also shot several notable telefilms, including 1992’s The Man Upstairs, starring Katherine Hepburn and Ryan O’Neal; Mrs. Delafield Wants to Marry, with Hepburn and Harold Gould; Stone Pillow, starring Lucille Ball; Gauguin the Savage, starring David Carradine and Lynn Redgrave; and Too Far to Go, with Michael Moriarity, Blyth Danner and Glenn Close.

Lassally also appeared in front of the camera in Before Midnight, the third film in Richard Linklater’s acclaimed trilogy, playing a British writer.

He wrote a 1987 autobiography, Itinerant Cameraman.

Lassally died October 23, 2017, in Crete, Greece. He was 90.