We would like to thank our mentors, cinematographers Mike and Jim Glennon for their love and encouragement for The League of Honor.
An American cinematographer and the son of famed cinematographer Bert Glennon, James Glennon and his brothers learned photography at their father’s feet. (Their mother was script supervisor Mary Coleman.) James Glennon began work in the Warner Bros. mail room, where he often was assigned to make deliveries to studio head Jack L. Warner because the other mail clerks were afraid of Warner. Warner advised Glennon to buy a motion picture camera and rent it out, offering his own services for free. Glennon
did so, and thus initiated his career as a cinematographer with Jaws
of Death (1977). He continued to work as a camera operator on other
cinematographers’ films, including The Conversation (1974), Electric
Horseman (1979), Ordinary People (1980), Altered States (1980) and
Taps (1981), before coming to notice as cinematographer on the
groundbreaking El Norte (1983). He worked steadily thereafter
including on Star Wars Episode VI Return of The Jedi and Weird Science
(1985). He filmed My Wicked, Wicked Ways… The Legend of Errol Flynn
(1985) (TV), the story of the actor his own father had photographed in
four films. He partnered with director Alexander Payne on three films:
Citizen Ruth (1996), Election (1999), and About Schmidt (2002). He won
an Emmy Award in 2005 for a 2004 episode of “Deadwood”, the Western series for which he was principal cinematographer
for its entire run. He had widely varied interests. He served
repeatedly as a judge in the Nicholl Fellowship in Screenwriting of
the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences. He operated Malibu
Water Resources, a water aeration program, and he farmed clams in the
Pacific Northwest. He was extraordinarily beloved of his crews and
casts for his eternal optimism and unstinting praise and
encouragement. He died unexpectedly on October 19, 2006 from a blood
clot resulting from surgery for prostate cancer.