Background
His father, Gustav, was an architect who built a number of hotels in Chicago, Illinois, where he lived with his wife, Anna.
camera technician founder of Panavision
His father, Gustav, was an architect who built a number of hotels in Chicago, Illinois, where he lived with his wife, Anna.
After Gottschalk graduated with a degree in theater and arts from Carleton College in Minnesota, he moved to California to become a filmmaker.
Gustav"s success left the family well-off financially and influenced Gottschalk"s interest in film. He bought an interest in a camera shop and later got to know a nearby outfit that made underwater filming equipment for Jacques-Yves Cousteau. Equipment restrictions at the time made wide-angle filming difficult, and Gottschalk began experimenting with anamorphic lens equipment patented by Henri Chrétien.
In 1953, the CinemaScope process, based on Chrétien"s patents, was purchased and named by 20th Century Fox.
While the camera lenses were now available, the process required projection lenses as well. Gottschalk teamed up with several colleagues and began offering projection lenses under the name Panavision, which used prismatic rather than cylindrical optics.
This led to a successful expansion into lenses for cameras which are still widely used. Gottschalk was found in his Los Angeles home stabbed to death in 1982.
Gottschalk"s male lover, Laos Chuman, was convicted of his murder and sentenced in July 1983 to 26 years to life in prison.
Gottschalk was interred in the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Los Angeles