STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
The man responsible for the look of a classic film has died. Walter Lassally was a cinematographer for "Zorba The Greek" and won an Oscar for that. He died on a Greek island, Crete, at the age of 90 after a life of traveling the world telling epic stories. Joanna Kakissis reports on the man and his work.
JOANNA KAKISSIS, BYLINE: Walter Lassally was born in Berlin in 1926 to an engineer father who made industrial films. In a 2004 interview, he recalls how his father animated the film reels by hand.
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WALTER LASSALLY: And occasionally at, you know, age about 6 or 7 or 8, I was allowed to help by cranking the handle or whatever.
KAKISSIS: Then the Nazis came for his family, who are Christians with Jewish heritage.
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LASSALLY: For Hitler, of course, Jewishness wasn't a religion, it was a race. So if your grandma was Jewish then you were Jewish. That was that.
KAKISSIS: Lassally's family fled to Britain in 1939. The young refugee grew up to be a sought-after cameraman.
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KAKISSIS: He shot documentaries about jazz in London, then moved on to feature films around the world. In 1955, he flew to Athens to meet Cypriot director Mihalis Kakogiannis and his crew.
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LASSALLY: They were expecting, I think, some sort of English gentleman. And I can still remember they all stared at me like that. That boy is going to photograph our movie? (Laughter).
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KAKISSIS: He went on to make six films with Kakogiannis, most famously a 1964 epic about a larger-than-life Greek.
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UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Anthony Quinn in the role he was born to play, Zorba the Greek.
KAKISSIS: Zorba became a legend, and Lassally won an Oscar.
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UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: The winner is Walter Lassally for "Zorba The Greek."
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UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As character) Hey, you laugh. (Laughter).
KAKISSIS: He chose a beach on Crete for the famous closing dance scene. Lassally lived his last years near that beach and gave his Oscar to a local taverna. His neighbors called him Walter the Greek. For NPR News, I'm Joanna Kakissis in Athens. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
