George K. Hollister
George K. Hollister (March 7, 1873 – March 28, 1952) was an American pioneer cinematographer.[1]
Born in New York City, New York, little is known of his background. In 1903 he married a seventeen-year-old girl named Alice from Worcester, Massachusetts, believed to be the daughter of French-Canadian immigrants. They had a daughter, Doris Ethel, born in 1906 and George Jr., born in 1908.
Around 1908, Hollister was hired by the Kalem Company to train as a camera operator. Under film director Sidney Olcott, he was the camera man for the pioneering Kalem team that filmed in Florida during the winter and in 1910 would be part of the first ever crew to film on location outside of the United States. Traveling to Ireland with Olcott's crew that included leading lady and principal screenwriter, Gene Gauntier, and actor Robert Vignola, George Hollister shot The Lad From Old Ireland plus a number of film shorts in Blarney Castle, Glengarriff and at the Lakes of Killarney. A Kalem crew returned to Ireland in each of the next two years and in 1912, Hollister's wife joined them and acted in the first of her films.
After the 1912 filming in Ireland, Hollister then filmed his most important cinematic accomplishment when Olcott led the Kalem team to Palestine, where they filmed From the Manger to the Cross. The film told the story of Jesus, and in 1998 was selected for the National Film Registry of the United States Library of Congress.
George K. Hollister appeared as an actor in a few scenes in several films and did his last camera work in 1929. He died in Los Angeles in 1952 and is interred in the Great Mausoleum, Columbarium of Solace at Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California. His wife Alice, who died in 1973, is interred with him.
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