Maury Gertsman

Director

Pennsylvania, USA

April 17, 1907

Biography

From Wikipedia Maury Gertsman (17 April 1907 - 13 December 1999) was a senior-ranked cinematographer at Universal Pictures from the mid-1940s through the mid-1950s. Gertsman's first film of note was Jungle Captive and he distinguished himself with his lensing of the final two Sherlock Holmes movies starring Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce, Terror by Night and Dressed to Kill. His most interesting project of the mid-1940s, however, was the final Rondo Hatton vehicle, The Brute Man, which made Universal sufficiently uncomfortable that they sold it off to Poverty Row distributor Producers Releasing Corporation. At American International Pictures he photographed the horror satire How to Make a Monster, while at United Artists he lensed Invisible Invaders and The Four Skulls of Jonathan Drake. In 1959, he became the cinematographer on the television series Adventures in Paradise. His film work became far less frequent after 1960, although he did find himself roped into the production of The Creeping Terror in 1964. Like many of his contemporaries, Gertsman finished his career working in television, on shows like Arthur Lubin's Mister Ed series (1961-66) for Filmways Television and most specifically for superstar Lucille Ball and her two subsequent sitcoms The Lucy Show (1962-68) and Here's Lucy (1968-74), the latter of which was produced under her own Lucille Ball Productions, Inc. banner.