Natalie Kalmus

Natalie Kalmus (née Dunfee or Dunphy) (April 7, 1882, Houlton, Maine –

Natalie Kalmus
November 15, 1965, Boston, Massachusetts),[1] was credited as the "color
supervisor" of virtually all Technicolor feature films made from 1934 to 1949. She Born Natalie Dunfee or
was married to Technicolor founder Herbert T. Kalmus from July 23, 1902 to June Dunphy
[2]
22, 1922, and they continued to lived together until 1944. April 7, 1882
Houlton, Maine
Originally a catalog model, then an art student, Kalmus made sure that costumes,
Died November 15, 1965
sets and lighting were adjusted for the color film process's sensitivities. Her services
(aged 83)
were contractually part of Technicolor's services. In her work to make sure filming
Boston,
rendered colors properly on screen, she was accused of going to the other extreme of
Massachusetts
mildness. She wrote: "A super-abundance of color is unnatural, and has a most
Occupation Technicolor color
unpleasant effect not only upon the eye itself, but upon the mind as well." She
supervisor
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."[3] Producer David O. Spouse(s) Herbert Kalmus
Selznick complained in a memo during the making ofGone with the Wind: (1902–1922)

“ [The] technicolor experts have been up to their old tricks of putting all sorts of
obstacles in the way of real beauty. . . . We should have learned by now to take with
a pound of salt much of what is said to us by the technicolor experts. . . . I have tried
for three years now to hammer into this organization that the technicolor experts are
for the purpose of guiding us technically on the [film] stock and not for the purpose
of dominating the creative side of our pictures as to sets, costumes, or anything
else. . . . If we are not going to go in for lovely combinations of set and costume and
really take advantage of the full variety of colors available to us, we might just as
well have made the picture in black and white. It would be a sad thing indeed if a
great artist had all violent colors taken off his palette for fear that he would use them
so clashingly as to make a beautiful painting impossible.[4] ”
Director Vincente Minnelli recalled of making Meet Me in St. Louis, "My juxtaposition of color had been highly praised on the stage,
[5] Director Allan Dwan was more blunt: "Natalie Kalmus was a bitch."
but I couldn't do anything right in Mrs. Kalmus's eyes." [6]

Her association with Technicolor ended in 1948 when she named the corporation as a co-defendant in an alimony suit against Herbert
Kalmus, when it appeared he was about to remarry. She sued unsuccessfully for separate maintenance and half his assets of
Technicolor, Inc.[7] In 1950 she licensed her name for a line of designer television cabinets made by a California
manufacturer.[8][9][10] Her personal papers are now in the Margaret Herrick Library at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and
Sciences.

References
1. Passenger list, S.S. France, Port of New York, June 2, 1926. Passengerlist, S.S. Normandie, Port of New York, July
29, 1935. Passenger list, S.S.Queen Mary, Port of New York, 7 August 1939. Passenger list, S.S. Queen Mary, Port
of New York, December 24, 1947.
2. Kalmus v. Kalmus (1950) 97 CA2d 74.
3. From an article on the filming ofTrail of the Lonesome Pine:

[I]t did seem strange that a color director would have concerned herself, in other respects, with toning
down the color effects, instead of striving for the kaleidoscopic riot in which some previous color efforts
have resulted.
 Mrs. Kalmus explained that:

"You can tell a story with color," she said. "You can build character and locale with it. But if you use too
much of it, you may just spoil everything."

"So Very Red the Noses," New York Times, Feb 16, 1936, p. X5.
4. Memo from David O. Selznick to production manager Ray Klune, March 13, 1939.
Gone with the Wind was the fifth
Technicolor picture Selznick made in three years.
5. Vincente Minnelli, I Remember It Well, New York: Doubleday, 1974.
6. Morris, Gary. "Angel in Exile" (http://www.brightlightsfilm.com/17/07_dwan.html), Bright Lights Film Journal, Issue 17,
September 1996. However, Dwan and Kalmus never worked on a film together.
7. "Funds Asked to Trace Technicolor Romance,"Washington Post, Nov. 5, 1948, p. C9.
8. "Natalie Kalmus Joins Richmond in TV Firm(https://books.google.com/books?id=f0UEAAAAMBAJ&pg=P
A11)",
Billboard, April 8, 1950, p. 11.
9. "Choose a TV set designed for the homes of Hollywood Stars" (advertisement),
New York Times, Dec. 14, 1950, p.
28.
10. Natalie Kalmus (http://www.tvhistory.tv/1950-59-NATALIE-KALMUS.htm), Television History — The First 75 Years.

Further reading
Natalie Kalmus, "Color Consciousness,"Journal of the Society of Motion Picture Engineers25, 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.
ISBN 978-0-292-71628-5.

External links
Natalie Kalmus on IMDb
Kalmus v. Kalmus, 1950.
Kalmus v. Kalmus, 1951.
Natalie Kalmus television sets.
Natalie Kalmus Collection, Margaret Herrick Library.

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