'' (1921) Born in
Amsterdam to
Russian parents, Abel began his career in 1916. He came to the United States as a child in the first decade of the 1900s and worked as a portrait photographer in New York before entering films with
Flying A Studios in 1913. His credits include
Grumpy (1930),
The Virtuous Sin (1930),
Huckleberry Finn (1931),
The Gay Divorcee (1934),
Top Hat (1935),
Follow the Fleet (1936), and
The Affairs of Susan (1945). At
RKO Pictures during the 1930s, Abel was a favorite collaborator of director
Mark Sandrich and was responsible for the photography of five Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers musicals (
The Gay Divorcee,
Top Hat,
Follow the Fleet,
Swing Time, and
Shall We Dance). Other credits include
The Awful Truth,
Huckleberry Finn,
Hips, Hips, Hooray!,
Grumpy,
The Virtuous Sin, and
History Is Made at Night. He filmed a total of 110 films. He retired in 1937 but Sandrich persuaded him to come back as cameraman for the classic
Holiday Inn (1942). After two more films,
Follow the Boys (1944) and
The Affairs of Susan (1945), he left Hollywood film work for good. Abel lived for over fifty years in
Sierra Madre, California and died in
Los Angeles, buried in the
Hollywood Forever Cemetery. He and his wife, Eva ("Chava") Rayevsky did not leave behind children. ==Partial filmography==