John Ayala Alonzo: A Legacy in Cinematography (1934–2001)

John Ayala Alonzo, esteemed cinematographer, was born in Dallas to Mexican immigrant parents Román Palomo Alonzo and María Alonzo on June 12, 1934. He spent much of his childhood in Guadalajara, Mexico, before his family relocated permanently to Dallas. His mother was from Jalisco; his father, who was born in San Luis Potosí, was murdered in Dallas in 1948. From a young age, Alonzo worked part-time at Luna’s Tortilla Factory on McKinney Avenue. He attended North Dallas High School. After he graduated in 1953, he was hired by WFAA-TV program director Jay Watson. At WFAA, Alonzo worked his way up from the clean-up crew to set construction, rigging lights, and directing local shows. Learning the ropes with him was Andy Sidaris, who went on to become an Emmy-winning sports director for ABC as well as a director of B-movies. Alonzo married Suzanne Laverne Heltzel on December 28, 1954. The couple had three daughters: Gorgiana Mari, Angela Suzanne, and Cristiana. While working at WFAA, Alonzo created a character called Señor Turtle, a puppet who bantered with late-night movie host Hank Williamson. In 1965, when the show was picked up by NBC, Alonzo and his family moved to Los Angeles, where KHJ-TV (now KCAL-TV) hosted the show.

After a six-month run at KHJ, Señor Turtle was cancelled. Rather than return to Dallas, Alonzo decided to stay in Los Angeles, where he earned a living as a still photographer and as an actor, playing small parts in movies and television shows. Early in his career he was sometimes credited as John Alonso. He was cast as Miguel, a Mexican peasant (the “third villager from the left,” as he characterized the role) in The Magnificent Seven (1960). Alonzo also served as a translator on location in Mexico and was allowed to take still photographs of the production. Spending time with director of photography Charles Lang, whose career stretched back to 1926, Alonzo learned as much as he could about cinematography. Within a few years of returning to Los Angeles, he began working as a camera operator and director of photography on television documentaries. Alonzo shot documentaries for Wolper Productions and later for National Geographic. In 1964 he was cinematographer on the short film, The Legend of Jimmy Blue Eyes, which was nominated for an Academy Award for best live-action short film.

A highlight of his apprenticeship was his experience working as a camera operator on Seconds, a 1966 science fiction film directed by John Frankenheimer and starring Rock Hudson. The director of photography on the film was James Wong Howe, an industry legend whose credits went back even further than Lang’s. Howe allowed Alonzo to film hand-held sequences in the film, and Alonzo later became well-known for his hand-held camerawork. Howe stayed in touch with Alonzo after Seconds wrapped and became a mentor to him. While Alonzo’s career was beginning to blossom, his marriage was falling apart. He was divorced from his wife in 1966 and became estranged from his children.

Alonzo’s first feature film assignment was Roger Corman’s Bloody Mama (1970), an exploitation film about Ma Barker (Shelley Winters) and her boys, one of whom was played by a young Robert De Niro. Alonzo next shot Vanishing Point (1971), a high-octane muscle car thriller, and the cult film Harold and Maude (1971). He shot two 1972 films for director Martin Ritt: Sounder, about a Great Depression-era sharecropping family; and the Walter Matthau-Carol Burnett comedy Pete ‘n’ Tillie. Both were nominated for Academy Awards. Alonzo and Ritt went on to collaborate on several other films: Conrack (1974), Casey’s Shadow (1978), Norma Rae (1979), Back Roads (1981), and Cross Creek (1983). Ritt had previously worked with Alonzo’s mentor Howe on Hud (1966), an iconic Texas movie based on Larry McMurtry’s Horseman, Pass By (1961).

In 1973 Alonzo was contacted by director Roman Polanski, who had just fired veteran cinematographer Stanley Cortez from a film in the early stages of production. Alonzo took over as director of photography. The film, Chinatown (1974), was a popular and critical hit. Alonzo’s use of soft focus and saturated color to portray Southern California in the 1930s earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Cinematography; the film was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Film Registry in 1991 and proved to be a tremendous career booster for Alonzo. He became the first Mexican American to gain membership in the American Society of Cinematographers. A 2007 documentary about Alonzo and his work bore the title The Man Who Shot Chinatown.

After Chinatown, Alonzo applied his talents to a number of notable feature films, such as The Fortune (1975); Farewell, My Lovely (1975); The Bad News Bears (1976); Black Sunday (1977); Blue Thunder (1983); Scarface (1983); and Steel Magnolias (1989). He also directed several television movies, including a 1980 production starring Elizabeth Montgomery as Belle Starr, and one feature film, FM (1978). Alonzo was quick to assimilate technological advances into his work in theatrical films as well as television productions. He shot the 1994 television miniseries World War II: When Lions Roared, the first production shot in high-definition video made for American television. In 2000 he was behind the cameras (twenty-two were used) on Fail Safe, a live television drama based on the 1964 film of the same name. It was the first live dramatic telecast on CBS in forty years. Alonzo received a Primetime Emmy Award for his work.

At the age of sixty-six John Alonzo died of cancer on March 13, 2001. He was buried at Auburn Memorial Park in Auburn, Alabama, just a few miles from where he filmed Norma Rae. His second wife, Janet Mae (Murray) Alonzo, died in 2011 and was buried next to him. His epitaph reads simply, “A True Artist.” In addition to cinematography, directing, and acting, he was also a sculptor and a painter. In October 2003 he was honored with a retrospective at the Vistas Film Festival at the Angelika Film Center in Dallas.