In Remembrance: Gary Graver

     Gary Graver, the cinematographer who worked to complete Orson Welles’ final film, has passed away on November 16, 2006 in Rancho Mirage, CA. He was 68.

     Born July 20, 1938 in Portland, OR, Graver originally had ambitions of being an actor. While in high school he wrote and starred in a weekly radio show and had converted the basement of his family’s home into a theater where he screened 16mm films and performed magic shows for children. At age 19 he headed to Hollywood, but a stint in the Navy Combat Camera Group in Vietnam redirected his ambitions to behind the camera instead of in front of it.

     Graver got his start shooting cheapie, independent exploitation pictures like The Girls From Thunder Strip (1966), The Mighty Gorga (1969) and Dracula Vs. Frankenstein (1971).With exception of his work for Welles, Graver was never fully able to break free of the exploitation genre where his ability to shoot quickly was definitely a plus. He shot three films for producer Roger Corman- Moonshine County Express (1977), Deathsport (1978) and Ron Howard’s directorial debut, Grand Theft Auto (1977).

     In 1970, Graver telephoned Welles saying that he wanted to work for the great director. The two met and Welles asked Graver to shoot some test footage for a project he was putting together called The Other Side Of The Wind, the story of a gifted director’s slide into mediocrity. The film was shot intermittently whenever Welles could raise financing from 1972 to 1975 with a minimal crew and John Huston, director and Welles’ biographer Peter Bogdanovich and Welles' longtime companion and collaborator Oja Kodar in lead roles. Welles shot the project in such far flung locations as Paris, Spain, Belgium, Italy, New York, Yugoslavia and England. Graver would drop what ever project he was working on when ever Welles had secured more money for filming.

When Welles died in 1985, filming on The Other Side Of The Wind had been completed but only about 40 minutes of the footage had been edited together. Using notes that Welles made, Graver estimated a budget of approximately $3.5 million to complete the picture. Unfortunately, the rights to the film had been mired in a legal morass from which they have only recently become free. Reportedly, Graver with working on a deal with the Showtime cable network for the financing needed to complete the film.

During his association with Welles he also served as the cinematographer for the documentaries F For Fake (1975) and Filming Othello (1978). Graver also worked on the 1993 documentary It’s All True which looked at and featured footage from an abandoned documentary film that Welles was shooting in South America in 1942.

Through the 1980s and early 90s Graver shot and directed numerous adult features under the pseudonym Robert McCallum. Graver became one of the few professionals in the adult industry to be able to still work in mainstream films, albeit most of the projects he shot were low budget films. The most notable film of his later career was 1989’s Jaded, which was written and directed by Welles’ former lover Oja Kodar.