Natalie Kalmus

Natalie Kalmus (née Dunfee or Dunphy) (April 7, 1882, Houlton, Maine – November 15, 1965, Boston, Massachusetts), was the executive head of the Technicolor art department and credited as the color supervisor of nearly all Technicolor feature films made from 1934 to 1949. 

Once an art student and model, she married Herbert T. Kalmus in 1902, later the co-founder and president of the Technicolor Motion Picture Corporation. She was often credited as a co-developer of the Technicolor process, and was a member of the production team that shot the first Technicolor film in 1917.

Color Supervisor
Kalmus collaborated with the art and wardrobe departments of the studios during the preparation and making of Technicolor productions. She made sure that costumes, sets and lighting were adjusted for the color film process's sensitivities. She and her staff prepared color charts for each scene in a film. She reportedly earned $65,000 a year.

In her work to make sure filming rendered colors properly on screen, she was accused of going to the other extreme of mildness. She wrote: "A super-abundance of color is unnatural, and has a most unpleasant effect not only upon the eye itself, but upon the mind as well." She recommended "the judicious use of neutrals" as a "foil for color" in order to lend "power and interest to the touches of color in a scene." Producer David O. Selznick complained in a memo during the making of Gone with the Wind:

Director Vincente Minnelli recalled of making Meet Me in St. Louis, "My juxtaposition of color had been highly praised on the stage, but I couldn't do anything right in Mrs. Kalmus's eyes." Director Allan Dwan was more blunt: "Natalie Kalmus was a bitch." However, Dwan and Kalmus never worked on a film together.

After Technicolor

Her association with Technicolor ended in 1948 when she named the corporation as a co-defendant in an alimony suit against Herbert Kalmus. She sued unsuccessfully for separate maintenance and half his assets of Technicolor, Inc. 

In 1950 she licensed her name for a line of designer television cabinets made by a California manufacturer.

Her personal and professional papers are now in the Margaret Herrick Library at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Personal Life
Natalie and Herbert Kalmus were married from July 23, 1902 to June 22, 1922, but they continued to live together as late 1944.

She studied at the University of Zurich and Queen's University in Ontario where her husband also taught physics, electro-chemistry and metallurgy and earned his doctorate.

References

Further reading
 Natalie Kalmus, "Color Consciousness," Journal of the Society of Motion Picture Engineers 25, August 1935, p. 135-47.
 Natalie Kalmus, "Colour," in Behind the Screen: How Films Are Made, Stephen Watts, ed. London: A. Barker, Ltd., 1938.
 Kathleen McLaughlin, "Expert in Color Photography, Woman Is Paid $65,000 a Year," New York Times, Feb. 26, 1939, p. 46.
 "Madam Kalmus, Chemist," New York Times, April 2, 1939, p. 134.
 Natalie Kalmus, "Doorway to Another World," Coronet, vol. 25, no. 6, April 1949.
 Richard L. Coe, "Nation's Screens to Take on Color," Washington Post, March 7, 1950, p. 12.
 Scott Higgins, Harnessing the Technicolor Rainbow: Color Design in the 1930s. University of Texas Press, 2007. .

External links

Kalmus v. Kalmus, 1950.
Kalmus v. Kalmus, 1951.
Natalie Kalmus television sets.
Natalie Kalmus Collection, Margaret Herrick Library.

Category:American media executives
Category:1882 births
Category:1965 deaths