Early life and beginnings Willis was born in
Astoria, Queens, New York. His parents had been dancers in
Broadway theatre before his father became a makeup man at
Warner Bros. in
Brooklyn. As a child, Willis fell in love with films. He wanted to be an actor and then became interested in lighting and stage design, later turning to photography. For a time he intended to be a fashion photographer, photographing models he knew from living in
Greenwich Village. "I didn't know shit," Willis said, "[I was] dumber than dirt, as they say. No money, no jobs etc." Through contacts of his father's he worked as a "gofer" on various movies in New York. During the
Korean War, Willis served in the Air Force, managing to join the Photographic and Charting Service in a motion picture unit. "I spent four years learning everything I could about making movies," Willis said. After leaving the Air Force a friend helped him to join the East Coast union in New York and he started to work as an assistant cameraman, working his way up to become a first cameraman about thirteen years later. Willis once stated: "I'm a minimalist. I see things in simple ways ... It's human nature to define complexity as better. Well, it's not." In 1969, director
Aram Avakian hired Willis to work on his film
End of the Road. He collaborated with
Hal Ashby on
The Landlord (1970),
James Bridges on
The Paper Chase (1973), and
Herbert Ross on
Pennies From Heaven (1981); as well as shooting all three of Coppola's
Godfather films and working with Woody Allen on a succession of films that included
Annie Hall (1977) and
Manhattan (1979). His work turned out to be groundbreaking in its use of low-light photography and underexposed film, as well as in his control of lighting and exposure to create the sepia tones that denoted period scenes in
The Godfather Part II. On
Annie Hall he contrasted the warmth of Annie and Alvy Singer's romance in New York with the overexposure of the film's California scenes, while in Allen's
Manhattan he was responsible for what has been called a "richly textured black-and-white paean to the beauty and diversity of the city itself". Willis, whose idea it was to use anamorphic widescreen for the filming, said: "We both felt that New York was a black-and-white city". Willis also worked on the Allen films
Interiors (1978),
Stardust Memories (1980), ''
A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy (1982), Zelig (1983), Broadway Danny Rose (1984), and The Purple Rose of Cairo'' (1985). Allen said that working with Willis had helped to improve his technical skills, saying of him: "He's an artist. He's got a great sense of humor--he taught me a lot."
Academy Awards In the seven-year period up to 1977, Willis was the director of photography on six films that received among them 39
Academy Award nominations, winning 19 times, including three awards for
Best Picture. The fact that Willis did not receive a single nomination was a subject of some controversy. His frequent absence from this period's nominees has been ascribed both to his unhidden "antipathy for Hollywood" and his work being ahead of its time. and then for
The Godfather Part III (1990). In 2009, at the inaugural
Governors Awards, the Academy chose Willis as the recipient of the
Academy Honorary Award for his life's work. He admitted the film had been a mistake, His last film was ''
The Devil's Own'' (1997), directed by Pakula. Of his decision to retire, Willis said: "I got tired of trying to get actors out of trailers, and standing in the rain". ==Death==