Actor and Hollywood cameraman
Glen Gano (1892-1973), born in
Kokomo IN, was the cinematographer for four
Three Stooges productions:
Booby Dupes,
Micro-Phonies,
Idiots Dulux, and
The Yoke’s on Me. But, prior to that, he was also a
US Army camoufleur. On January 11, 1918, the Corvallis [OR]
Gazette Times included an article titled
CAMOUFLAGERS DUE FOR FRANCE VISIT HERE BEFORE DEPARTURE.
Gano, according to the article,
“came here from Camp American University [Washington DC] with John F. Byrne… Both soldiers beong to a camouflage corps, Company F of the Twenty-fourth Engineers, who are about to go to France. Private Byrne is a former Carnegie Institute of Technology student and last night entertained [students from that school] at his home…
Showing that psychologists are at work in assigning young men to the positions they are best fitted, Private Byrne…being a [scene] decorator, was assigned to camouflage.
For a wholly different reason, Mr. Gano, who enlisted at Los Angeles, was detailed for camouflage because he was familiar with outdoor photograpy, and was competent to arrange scenes which might easily deceive the German and Austrian expert scouts in the air.
Mr. Gano, in speaking of the reasons impelling him to enlist, said that war could not be more hazardous than going over cliffs in automobiles, lassoing moving locomotives and the like [as he has done as an actor in Hollywood films]. “As a class we want to show the nation that screen actors have more enduring qualities than curly locks, and ‘looking pretty’ in close-ups,” Mr. Gano said. According to Wikipedia: “On December 6, 1915, during the filming of an episode of the serial The Hazards of Helen, Gano, reportedly acting as a stunt double for the film's star, suffered what, over the next few days, would be described variously as ‘a fatal fall,’ ‘tragic death,’ ‘injuries from which he will probably die,’ (aka ‘probably fatal injuries’), making an ill-fated leap from the 4th Street Bridge in Los Angeles. Thankfully, reports of his demise proved premature.”
RELATED LINKS
Dazzle Camouflage: What is it and how did it work? / Nature, Art, and Camouflage / Art, Women's Rights, and Camouflage / Embedded Figures, Art, and Camouflage / Art, Gestalt, and Camouflage / Optical science meets visual art / Disruption versus dazzle / Chicanery and conspicuousness / Under the big top at Sims' circus
