Natalie Kalmus

Natalie M. Kalmus (née Dunfee, also documented as Dunphy; April 7, 1878 – November 15, 1965) was the executive head of the Technicolor art department and credited as the director or "color consultant" of all Technicolor films produced from 1934 to 1949.

Once an art student and model, she married American scientist and engineer Herbert T. Kalmus in 1902 and later co-founded with him the Technicolor Motion Picture Corporation, serving for two decades as the company's chief on-site representative at studios that rented Technicolor's cameras for filming their color productions. Natalie Kalmus, who is often credited as a co-developer of the Technicolor process itself, was a member of the production team that shot the first Technicolor footage in 1917.

"Ringmaster to the rainbow" Kalmus collaborated with the art and wardrobe departments of motion-picture studios during the preparation and filming of Technicolor productions. She reviewed their costume selections, set furnishings, and lighting and then specified needed color changes and equipment adjustments to create the best visual "palette" for her company's Technicolor cameras. She and her staff also prepared color preference charts for each scene in a film. In summarizing her duties as the company's color art director at various studios, Kalmus described her role "'as playing ringmaster to the rainbow'". Those duties also required her to work closely with principal cast during production to establish the best visual environment and emotional atmosphere to support and even enhance the actors' performances. In 1932, Photoplay feature writer Lois Shirley described for her readers the mix of psychology and technical expertise that "color scientist" Kalmus employed to get a leading actress to select an appropriate item of clothing for the Technicolor cameras:

Kalmus's color chart, 1932 In addition to explaining to studio personnel the technical aspects of filming in Technicolor, Kalmus in her work analyzed and documented her observations regarding the psychological effects of color, more specifically how different colors emanate particular "vibrations" or varying levels of "radiations". In March 1939, during the making of Gone with the Wind, producer David O. Selznick complained in a memo to the film's production manager:

While directing the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer musical Meet Me in St. Louis (1944), Vincente Minnelli recalled his work with Kalmus: "My juxtaposition of color had been highly praised on the stage, but I couldn't do anything right in Mrs. Kalmus's eyes." Two years later, embarking on a new line of business, she licensed her name for a line of designer television cabinets made by a California manufacturer. The correspondence and records relating to that and other business ventures, along with Kalmus's personal papers are preserved in the Margaret Herrick Library at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Beverly Hills, California.

In 1955, the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers, established the Natalie M. and Herbert T. Kalmus Medal for high quality scientific contributions to filmmaking in motion picture production, post-production, and distribution services.

Personal life and death Natalie married Herbert Kalmus on July 23, 1902 in Baldwinville, Massachusetts. She studied at the University of Zurich and Queen's University in Ontario Despite their divorce, Natalie and Herbert continued to work together for over two decades, with most of their friends completely unaware that their marriage had ended.

Natalie Kalmus died at Roslindale General Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts on November 15, 1965. She was interred in Beechwood Cemetery in the village of Centerville, Massachusetts, on Cape Cod.