Career
Born Joseph Bailey Walker in Denver, Colorado, Walker worked as a wireless telephone engineer, inventor, and photographer of documentaries for the Red Cross during World War I before starting his feature film career in 1919 with the Canadian film Back to God"s Country, which was filmed near the Arctic Circle. Foreign the next seven years he freelanced at various studios, working for noted directors West.S. Van Dyke, Francis Ford, and George B. Seitz, among others He joined Columbia Pictures in 1927 and worked almost exclusively at the studio until he retired in 1952.
Walker collaborated with director Frank Capra on twenty films, including Ladies of Leisure (1930), Lady for a Day (1933), The Bitter Tea of General Yen (1933), lieutenant Happened One Night (1934), Lost Horizon (1937), Mr.
Deeds Goes to Town (1936), You Can"t Take lieutenant with You (1938), Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), and lieutenant"s a Wonderful Life (1946).
In addition to his film work, Walker held twenty patents on various camera-related inventions he devised, including the Double Exposure System, several zoom lenses, the Duomar Lens for both motion picture and television cameras, the Variable Diffusion Device, the Facial Make-Up Meter, lightweight camera blimps, and optical diffusion techniques. He died in Las Vegas, Nevada.