biography
| name: |
Kalmus, Herbert T(homas)
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| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1881–1963)
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| biography:
| Inventor, born in Chelsea, Massachusetts. In 1902 he married Natalie Mabelle Dunfee (1883–1965), born in Norfolk, Virginia, USA. She studied art while he earned his BS from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) (1904). They went to Europe (1905–6), where both continued their studies. He taught at MIT (1907–15) and formed the firm Kalmus, Comstock & Westcorr, Inc (1915) which developed an early form of Technicolor used in the motion picture The Gulf Between (1917). The couple secretly divorced in 1921, but continued to work together, and Natalie is generally recognized as having played a significant role in developing Technicolor. Herbert moved his operations to Hollywood (1927), and the three-colour technology was used in what is regarded as the first full-colour film, Becky Sharp (1935). Natalie sued Herbert in the late 1940s, seeking half his assets; the court upheld the 1921 divorce, and she received only a pension of $11 000 a year. Herbert was sued by the US Justice Department in an anti-trust action (1947), but he retained control of Technicolor until he retired in 1959. |
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