Charles Schoenbaum

American cinematographer

Charles Edgar Schoenbaum A. S. C. (April 28, 1893 – January 21, 1951) was an American cinematographer. His known film credits began in 1917 although he probably had earlier films and ended with his untimely death from cancer in 1951 at age 57. He was nominated for an Academy Award in 1949 for his work on Little Women.

He was born in Los Angeles, California, to Anna A. Campbell (age 20) and William E. Schoenbaum (age 22). His brother was Hollywood still photographer Emmett Schoenbaum, and the latter named a son after him.

He began working for Fox Film sometime in the 1910s. Some of the stars he worked with closely were Elizabeth Taylor, W. C. Fields, Mickey Rooney, Gary Cooper, Norma Shearer, Wallace Reid, Abbott and Costello, Chester Morris, Wallace Beery, and many others. Schoenbaum worked on over 100 films, including several of the Lassie films in the late 1940s. Jeanette MacDonald (who was a dog lover), joked to him, "I've come to this, working with a dog!" He was frequently a cinematographer for Cecil B. DeMille, Louis B. Mayer, Jesse Lasky, and his good friend Victor Fleming. Schoenbaum was also known for Westerns, often shooting on location in the American Southwest and Canada. In 1926 he was listed as a "staff cinematographer" for Lasky. Known for his prodigious work ethic, it even became a bit of a joke in the profession. For the new year's issue of The American CInematographer in 1922, the editors wrote "Charles E. Schoenbaum will call it a happy New Year if he can crank every one of the 365 days of 1922. If he can be guaranteed this Charles E. won't even ask for a lay off between pictures. This boy certainly does love to work." When director Rouben Mamoulian capriciously fired Oscar winning cinematographer Charles Rosher from Summer Holiday (1948), he replaced him with Schoenbaum. Cinematographer Karl Brown called Schoenbaum one of the "notable studio photographers," and interviewed him for a Photoplay article on technique. His ongoing pictures and past work were often mentioned in the "In Camerafornia" column or other sections of the trade magazine The American Cinematographer.

He sometimes registered screenplays under the pseudonym "Charles Edgar." He was also frequently uncredited on films when he was brought in on other people's projects to help fix problems. Some of his films are also missing because he worked under different versions of his name, C. Edgar Schoenbaum, Charles E. Schoenbaum, and C. E. Schoenbaum. For archival research purposes, sometimes it has been misspelled "Shoenbaum."

He married Hazel Faye Pfeiffer on February 11, 1915, in Los Angeles. They had a daughter, Vera Marie, on October 9, 1916, and a son, Charles Layton, in 1917. The son died at age six months. The daughter became a playwright, lived to be 98, and enjoyed sharing her stories of old Hollywood with various researchers. The family lived in Beverly Hills, where their daughter Vera attended Beverly Hills High School from 1930 34. Vera Schoenbaum (later Gebbert), under the pen name Vera Mathews, had one play on Broadway. She worked for Broadway agent Audrey Wood, and worked closely with playwright Tennessee Williams. Her play Third Cousin was performed at Margo Jones' Theater in the Round in 1947, where actor Jack Warden was just getting started, and also where Tennessee Williams debuted his first play. She corresponded for years with C. S. Lewis, and is in his collected letters. She was also Edward Baron Turk's source of information on her father and Jeanette MacDonald, and she once helped her friend MacDonald walk her dogs during breaks on the long train ride from California to New York.