Bill Butler, ‘Jaws’ Cinematographer, Dies at 101

Bill Butler, Emmy-winning and Oscar-nominated cinematographer best known for lensing Steven Spielberg’s “Jaws,” died on Wednesday at the age of 101. His passing was confirmed by the American Society of Cinematographers.

Along with “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” for which he received his only Academy Award nomination in 1976, and the game-changing summer movie blockbuster, he also lensed films such as “The Conversation,” “Grease,” “Child’s Play,” “Anaconda,” “Frailty” and the first three “Rocky” sequels.

Along with an Oscar nomination an BAFTA award both for “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” Butler won Primetime Emmys for “Raid on Entebbe” in 1977 and “A Streetcar Named Desire” in 1984.

Born on April 7, 1921, in Cripple Creek, Colorado, Butler lived the first five years of his life in a log cabin. He would grow up in Mount Pleasant, Iowa and would eventually graduate from the University of Iowa with a degree in Engineering.

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Butler began his career as an engineer at a radio station in Gary, Indiana before moving to Chicago. He helped design and built the very first television stations at the ABC affiliate and WGN-TV. Butler operated live video cameras for commercials and for local programs for WGN, which is where he met director William Friedkin. The filmmaker asked Butler to be his cinematographer on “The People vs. Paul Crump,” a documentary about a prisoner on death row. The film resulted in the prisoner’s death sentence being commuted.

The longtime cinematographer, whose career spanned from 1962 to 2016, received the American Society of Cinematographers Lifetime Achievement Award in 2003. The award was partially for, but not entirely for, his work on Spielberg’s history-making shark thriller.

The director wrote a letter to Butler in commemoration which read “You were the calm before, during and after every storm on the set of “Jaws.” Without your zen-like confidence and wonderful sense of humor, I would have gone the way of the rest of the “Jaws” crew — totally out of my friggin’ mind. Congratulations on this well-deserved career achievement award from your peers. All my best, Steven.”

He is survived by five daughters and his wife, Iris. He would have been 102 on Friday.

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