Andrew Laszlo

Andrew Laszlo, ASC was a cinematographer of Hungarian origin whose credits included, while in the employ of Associates and Ferren. An active member of the American Society of Cinematographers (ASC) since 1965, Laszlo earned an Emmy Award nomination for Best Cinematography For Entertainment Programming for the 1973 made-for-TV drama The Man Without a Country. He received a second Emmy nomination for Outstanding Cinematography for a Limited Series or a Special for the fourth segment of the 1980 mini-series Shogun, on which actors John Rhys-Davies and W. Morgan Sheppard, production designer Joe Jennings, and set decorator Tom Pedigo also worked.

Laszlo was born András László in Pápa, Hungary. He was working as an apprentice cameraman at a film studio in Budapest when World War II began and he and his family were sent to a Nazi concentration camp. He was the only member of his family to survive the ordeal. In 1947, he moved to the United States. While working as a freelance still photographer and photography laboratory assistant in 1950, he was drafted into the US Army Signal Corps, serving as a combat photographer in Korea for two years. Following his military service, he began working in movie and television production, becoming a camera operator and later occasional director of photography on the ABC drama series Naked City, which ran from 1958 to 1962. This series was narrated by Lawrence Dobkin; others who worked on the program included directors Ralph Senensky and Robert Gist and writers Barry Trivers, Shimon Wincelberg and Gilbert Ralston.

Laszlo's other early cinematographic work included 's 1966 film You're a Big Boy Now (starring Michael Dunn), the 1968 comic film The Night They Raided Minsky's (featuring Richard Libertini), the 1970 TV movie Black Water Gold (starring Ricardo Montalban and France Nuyen), 's comedy The Out of Towners (featuring Paul Dooley, Graham Jarvis, Richard Libertini and Thalmus Rasulala, with camera operation by Edward R. Brown), the 1971 comedy Jennifer On My Mind (starring Steve Vinovich and edited by John W. Wheeler), and NBC's 1973 made-for-TV remake of Miracle on 34th Street (featuring James Gregory and Jason Wingreen). He also worked on the Alexander Singer-directed TV movie Hunters of the Reef (starring Stephen Macht and William Windom), mini-series The Dain Curse (which starred performers Jean Simmons and Brent Spiner), and film Somebody Killed Her Husband (starring John Glover), all of which were released in 1978.

For director, Laszlo was the cinematographer on The Warriors (1979), Southern Comfort (1981, starring Keith Carradine), and Streets of Fire (1984, featuring Ed Begley, Jr.). The latter two films featured production designs by art director John Vallone. In addition, Laszlo directed photography on the first Rambo film, First Blood (1982), the 1986 Poltergeist sequel, Poltergeist II: The Other Side, and two films starring regulars: 1985's Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins with Kate Mulgrew (as well as Jeff Allin, Joel Grey, Patrick Kilpatrick, and Michael Pataki) and 1987's Innerspace with Robert Picardo (as well as Henry Gibson, Andrea Martin, Richard McGonagle, Dick Miller, William Schallert, Mark L. Taylor, and Kenneth Tobey).

Laszlo's other credits include the TV movies Top of the Hill (1980; starring Adrienne Barbeau and Gary Lockwood) and Thin Ice (1981; featuring Daniel Hugh Kelly and Dwight Schultz), the 1981 horror film The Funhouse (featuring Kevin Conway), and the 1982 Mike Hammer film I, the Jury (starring Paul Sorvino). His last projects were the comedy film Ghost Dad (featuring Dakin Matthews and Eric Menyuk) and the 1992 Disney feature Newsies (starring Marc Lawrence and featuring Frank Novak and Kevin Tighe).

After completing his work on Newsies, Laszlo retired from cinematography and became an author, writing novels as well as books on cinematography. He also taught cinematography at various universities. He stated in 2004 that, if the right film project were to come along, he would consider working on it. That project never came, however, and Laszlo died on 7 October 2011 at the age of 85.