In Memoriam: Bill Klages

	Bill Klages

Lighting&Sound America has learned that television lighting legend Bill Klages passed away on July 7. He was 97.

A native of Long Beach, New York, Klages obtained a bachelor's degree from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and a Master's from Columbia University. His first job, in research electronics, was a disappointment. "It was so dull, I couldn't stand it," he noted in an interview with the Television Academy. "The people were dull. After [a project's] development, you spent weeks trying to make it work."

Seeking alternatives, in November 1948 Klages was accepted into a training program at NBC aimed at persons with advanced engineering degrees; he soon began working as a video maintenance engineer on the Sid Caesar comedy-variety hour Your Show of Shows and The Kate Smith Hour. After being promoted to video engineer, he switched to Your Hit Parade.

A two-year career pause followed after Klages was drafted into the Navy. At that point, "I didn't want to go back as a video engineer," he noted. "I was always interested in the lighting part, what made shows look good." A friend, Larry Elikann, who worked as a cameraman on the NBC series Playwright '56, recommended Klages to the producer Fred Coe. "I wasn't frightened at all of that very first show," Klages said. "Lead me to it. It was great."

Beginning at a time when television lighting was still in its relative infancy and living through the transition from black and white to color, Klages distinguished himself for his skill and efficiency. "You set goals for yourself," he said in the Television Academy interview. "Mine were always simplicity and speed. If it didn't [work in] 10 minutes, forget it. The judgment for me is, does it look good? Lighting is important for the visibility of the environment, but in my terms, it's creating something that's visually interesting."

In the ensuing decades, Klages distinguished himself in many different television genres. He designed lighting for the AFI Life Achievement Awards, American Music Awards, Emmy Awards, Grammy Awards, and People's Choice Awards. He also worked on series like Faerie Tale Theatre and In Living Color. He also lit the stage-to-screen adaptations of dramas like Athol Fugard's "Master Harold"...and the Boys, Neil LaBute's Bash: Latter-Day Plays, and the Stephen Sondheim-Hugh Wheeler musical Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. On film, he served as a concert lighting consultant for Ray, starring Jamie Foxx as Ray Charles, and the documentary Chuck Berry: Hail! Hail! Rock 'n' Roll. Other credits include a production of Arthur Miller's The Crucible (starring George C. Scott and Colleen Dewhurst), Monty Python Live at the Hollywood Bowl, and the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles.

But it was the variety series and/or special, a format that no longer exists, where Klages really made his mark. His credits include The Ernie Kovacs Show, Perry Como's Kraft Music Hall, The Soupy Sales Hour, Hullabaloo; the much-lauded Annie: The Women in the Life of a Man (starring Anne Bancroft); Harry and Lena (starring Harry Belafonte and Lena Horne); Really, Raquel (starring Raquel Welch); Mitzi & 100 Guys (starring Mitzi Gaynor); Ann-Margret: Rhinestone Cowgirl; The Johnny Cash Christmas Special; Bette Midler Ol' Red Hair is Back; Olivia (starring Olivia Newton-John); Rockette: A Holiday Tribute to Radio City Music Hall; Dolly & Carol in Nashville, starring Dolly Parton and Carol Burnett; The Muppets Go Hollywood; John Denver and The Muppets: A Christmas Together; Goldie and Liza Together, starring Goldie Hawn and Liza Minnelli; Night of 100 Stars; Baryshnikov in Hollywood; An Evening with Robin Williams; The Rodney Dangerfield Special: I Can't Take It No More; Motown Returns to the Apollo; The Patti LaBelle Show; and Barbara Mandrell's Christmas: A Family Reunion.

According to a Television Academy tribute, Klages "developed techniques emulated by other designers, such as mimicking single-camera effects on the multi-camera The Perry Como Show, during which Como would sing several numbers perched on a stool. 'We'd do them in dissolves,' Klages noted in his 2001 interview for the Television Academy Foundation's Archive of American Television. 'He'd be cross-lit, and the next thing you knew, we'd go to another shot, and he'd be front-lit, with a different lighting scheme. We would do the cue during the action. In order to get the results, we'd have to have a certain [light] sensitivity.' When a West Coast designer phoned to ask how to achieve the effect, Klages discovered that his counterpart was using twice the illumination, proportionately reducing the amount of sensitivity. 'He wanted to know what magic I used. My 'magic' was the simpler solution'."

In 1970, Klages joined the eminent lineup of designers at Imero Fiorentino Associates. He remained there until 1983 when he opened his firm The Klages Group. Another company, New Klages, opened in 1995, focusing on television studio design. As recently as 2012, he was working on the George W. Bush Presidential Library.

Klages won numerous Emmy Awards for The Lie (CBS Playhouse, 1973), Mitzi & 100 Guys (1975), The Dorothy Hamill Special (1976), The Sixth Annual Kennedy Center Honors: A Celebration (1984); The 26th Annual Grammy Awards (1984); Dance in America: Baryshnikov by Tharp (1985); and The 33rd Annual Grammy Awards (1991). He was admitted to the Television Academy's Hall of Fame in 2012.

Commenting on Klages' passing, Kieran Healy, lighting designer for American Idol and Whose Line Is It, Anyway?, said, "I was first introduced to Bill Klages by Greg Brunton (one of my mentors) in 1982 at the offices of Imero Fiorentino and Associates. The following year he founded his own company, The Klages Group, which then morphed into Design Partners Inc.

"I was lucky enough to work for Design Partners from 1989-1997 and even luckier to have Bill as a mentor. As an engineer, he was one of the first to embrace AutoCAD as a tool for his design work; he labored long and hard to make his own lighting design program, writing all the Lisp routines and making hundreds of drawings and symbols to utilize in the program. He first did this on a Macintosh computer but when AutoCAD dropped their support for Macs, he had to completely redo his work for Windows. As I showed interest in this project, he was kind enough to teach me the program, which was a game-changer, and I actively used it throughout my entire career. He could easily have marketed the program, but he was happier just to give it away. Bill did all the big shows at the time and occasionally I would tag along to observe and pepper him with questions, which he always patiently answered. I will always remember my time with 'the father of television lighting'. He was always available to answer questions or give you the benefit of his vast experience. Rest in peace, Bill."

Bob Barnhart, whose extensive career includes lighting for Super Bowl Halftime Shows and innumerable awards shows, said, "Bill was an amazing mentor and a good friend. He developed the very fundaments of TV lighting that are used to this day. He not only understood them; he could explain them! Bill's attitude, work ethic, and personality were unmatched. His priorities, as well, were always in good order; at the beginning of any workday, his first question to you was, 'Where are we going to dinner?' Bill Klages will be greatly missed by the lighting community that he touched, but the memories and stories he left us with will never fade out."

A noted raconteur, Klages was famed for convulsing attendees at the lighting conference Showlight with hilarious stories from his long career. As of post-time, full information about survivors wasn't available. LSA will provide updates as they arrive.