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ONE HUNDRED NOT OUT AN INTERVIEW WITH ERIC CROSS BSC
T here must be something in the water – or perhaps it’s the
long-lasting effects of scrump- tious location catering – that seems to give British cine- matographers such remark- able longevity. When his fel-
low DPs gathered at Pinewood earlier this year to celebrate the 100th birthday of Eric Cross BSC, he was surrounded by a phalanx of venerable lighting camera- men whose total years spanned more than half a millennium.
Among them were other, perhaps starrier, pillars of the BSC like Ossie Morris, Douglas Slocombe, Jack Cardiff, Freddie Francis and Alex Thomson all gathered in the centenarian’s honour.
Cross was never an award-winning cameraman but in nearly 50 films across some 30 years, until his retirement at the turn of the sixties, he was never less than the consummate professional.
Wearing a flat cap and sports jacket, the way you feel he might well have dressed when he was in work mode way back, he recently met me at the door of his bungalow with a twinkle in the eyes and a smile on his lips.
“You know, I’m very old,” he remind- ed me, “and this last year my marbles have gone a bit,” he added, as a nearby photo of the Queen stared down at him.
The son of Essex builders, Colchester- born Cross started in the industry as a stills man at the old British International Pictures studios in Elstree. Alfred Hitchcock was making many of his early silents there at the time and Cross recalled Hitch give his leading lady (probably Lillian Hall-Davies) the direction, “heaving bosoms.” He guf- faws merrily at the memory of it.
Graduating to camera assistant with Hitch’s regular DP, Jack Cox, Cross even-
tually worked his way up through the ranks making his own debut in 1931 as lighting cameraman on The Bells – “I did the exteriors in Scotland” - sharing credit (as he’d do later on Black Sheep of Whitehall) with Gunter Krampf.
Another early memory of Elstree was Jack Cardiff. “I slept with him once,” Cross laughed. “I used to get to the studio by motorbike and I was work- ing late and it was raining hard outside. Jack’s father, who was the property master, said I shouldn’t go home in such bad weather and invited me to stay the night at their home nearby – but I’d have to share a bed with Jack!”
As for other cameramen he particu- larly admired, he picked out Georges Perinal. “Korda sent me down to Dover once to pick him up after he’d come over from France. I wanted to talk about his films but he was only interested in my car, a Triumph Gloria. He was a great mechanic and had a wonderful workshop at Denham with all the latest tools.”
Mention of cars provokes a story that used to be told of Cross. He apparently used to have endless battery problems and so often had trouble getting his car started. It was said he always lived on top of hills which would help a push start.
Among his own favourite credits are The Kidnappers (filmed in Nova Scotia), The One That Got Away and, best remem- bered of all, Tiger Bay. “It was little Hayley Mills’s first picture. We had this scene in a church loft lit with candles and she thought it was a great idea to drip wax on me in between takes,” he smiled. Two of his more underrated films are an intriguing pair he lit for director Bernard Miles – “ a very interesting man though a bit eccentric.” An eco-come- dy/drama, Tawny Pipit, as its title sug-
gests, had some beautiful rural scenes while, by contrast, Chance Of A Lifetime was a gritty, almost documentary-like, tale of labour relations.
“Did I have my own style of working? I don’t think so. I did hear second-hand, though, that I wasn’t a very good pho- tographer of women.” Yet he still man- aged to sympathetically light many beau- tiful actresses in his time. “One or two,” he confirmed, smiling at the memory.
Long widowed, Cross now lives on his own but has a helper who comes in regularly. His walls are decorated with some of his paintings and he said that because of his great old age he seemed now to be regarded as “a sort of film oracle.” He attributes his longevity to “healthy parents – I suppose.”
Perhaps the nicest testimonial of all comes from fellow veteran Roy Ward Baker, director of The One That Got Away, who, in his recent autobiography, wrote of Cross: “He did a brilliant job... and I can’t speak too highly of him.
“He was a joy to work with and one
of his great strengths was his implacable determination that all the conditions, particularly the weather, should be absolutely right for every scene: the snow in Canada, especially when falling; the pouring rain and high winds in a huge marsh in the Lake District, and so on.
“We both had to withstand heavy pressure from the studio about the schedule and the budget and without his indomitable backing I might well have caved in.
“Let me repeat, if ever a film depend- ed on what it looked like on the screen, this was it – and Eric Cross delivered the goods.” ■ QUENTIN FALK
Photos from left: Eric Cross BSC at his Birthday celebrations with friends; with his Birthday cake; and with fellow Cinematographers - back row l-r: Douglas Slocombe BSC, Freddie Francis BSC, Alex Thomson BSC (youngest at 73); front row: Jack Cardiff BSC, Eric Cross BSC and Ossie Morris BSC (photos by Richard Blanshard); Hardy Kruger in The One That Got Away; Hayley Mills with Horst Buchholz and with her dad Sir John Mills in Tiger Bay (Moviestore Collection)
Another early memory of Elstree was Jack Cardiff. “I slept with him once,” Eric Cross laughed...