James Wong Howe

He met novelist Sanora Babb before the ‘Second World War’ and they eventually got married in Paris in 1937. However because of the anti-miscegenation laws, the marriage was legally recognised in the US after over a decade in 1949.

He raised Martin Fong as his godson after the latter moved to the US. Fong became a cinematographer, director, film producer and actor.

On July 12, 1976, Howe passed away and was interred in Los Angeles’ ‘Pierce Bros. Westwood Memorial Park’.

He was born Wong Tung Jim on August 28, 1899, in Canton (present day Guangzhou), China. That year his father immigrated to America to work on the ‘Northern Pacific Railway’.

In 1904, when Howe was five-year-old, the family moved to America to join his father and settled in Pasco, Washington. His father later opened a general store and successfully ran it albeit facing discrimination from locals.

Little Howe had a rather unhappy childhood as he was also not spared of the biased and racist remarks by neighbourhood children. He would often bribe them with candies from his family store to let him play with them.

He got his first camera, a Kodak Brownie from ‘Pasco Drug’, when he was twelve.

As a child he dreamt of becoming a prize-fighter and following his father’s death, the teenager shifted to Oregon where his uncle lived. For a while he pursued a career in bantamweight boxing and obtained a record of five victories, two losses and one draw.

In Los Angeles he started working as a delivery boy of a commercial photographer. However he was fired after being found developing passport photos for a friend in the darkroom of the firm. To make a living he became a busboy at the ‘Beverly Hills Hotel’.

One day by chance he came across one of his ex-boxing mates who was taking a shot for actor-director Mack Sennett in a city street. With the help of this friend he got in touch with cinematographer Alvin Wyckoff and got a custodial job at the ‘Famous Players-Lasky Studios’ with a remuneration of $10 a week.

Once, when he was asked to work as an extra clapper boy on the sets of the silent romantic war film ‘The Little American’ (1917), which was being directed by Cecil B. DeMille. He caught the attention of the director and DeMille kept him on and later floated his career as an assistant cameraman.

Howe also used to earn extra income by taking stills of Hollywood stars for their promotional purpose. One such photograph took off his career as a cinematographer when he captured a still of actress Mary Miles Minter. The speciality of the picture was that Howe took her still while the actress was looking at a dark surface which resulted in her otherwise blue eyes looking darker than usual.

Howe soon became sought after by other blue-eyed actors, who insisted on taking him for their shoots.

He won ‘Academy Awards’ for two films, ‘The Rose Tattoo’ (1955) and ‘Hud’ (1963).