[1] The son of one of Italy’s foremost photographic artists, the boy was quite literally brought up in the studio, where he learned at an early age to use the still camera and to develop negatives in the darkroom.

[2] His father also gave him a liberal education in lenses, cameras, composition and the manipulation of lights so that when the time came to take up motion photography, the young Tony had a head full of useful information to start with.

[1] A young Gaudio shot hundreds of short subjects for Italian film companies, two or three features a week,[3] before emigrating to America in 1906 at the age of 22[5] together with his brother Eugene, who would follow him to the United States.

[3] The leading players in the Eleventh Avenue studio at that time were Mary Pickford, King Baggot, Joe Smiley, and Owen Moore, among others.

[1] He then left IMP to work for Biograph, a studio established in Brooklyn Heights, where he was engaged with the specials the company was making for Klaw and Erlanger, stage producers in New York.

[7] In 1916, Gaudio made the transition to California with a troupe of the early Metro Company,[4] one of the three organizations which would later become Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, where Eugene now worked as a director.

Following the death of Lockwood in a flu epidemic, Gaudio joined forces with Alan Dwan’s company for such pictures as The Forbidden Thing, and The Sin of Martha.

Beginning in 1919 and transitioning into the 1920s, Gaudio began his collaboration with First National Pictures, starting with films A Man of Honor, In Wrong, The Red Lantern, and Her Kingdom of Dreams and In Old Kentucky.

[9] In total, Gaudio and Frothingham collaborated five times on The Ten Dollar Raise, The Other Woman, A Bride of the Gods, The Man Who Smiled and Pilgrim of Night.

Arrangements were made whereby he was “farmed out” to other large producers,[13] he having thus photographed John M. Stahl’s Husbands and Lovers, Corrine Griffith’s Déclassée, and Marion Davies in Adam and Eva.

[15] In total, Gaudio photographed 10 Talmadge films from 1922 to 1925[7] as Chief Cinematographer of Joseph M. Schenck productions,[10] most notably with The Eternal Flame, Secrets, and Ashes of Vengeance.

In July of 1925 it was announced that Gaudio would be directing the Waldorf special feature production in collaboration with Columbia Pictures,[16] starring Alice Lake and Gaston Glass, with ASC’s Sam Landers as the cinematographer, titled The Price of Success.

[13] This directorial streak did not last for long, as Gaudio returned Metro as a cinematographer in 1926 with The Temptress, a Greta Garbo feature in which Tony lost the little finger of his left hand when he fell on the set.

Also with First National was Two Arabian Knights and The Racket, both directed by Lewis Milestone, for businessman and producer Howard Hughes in collaboration with United Artists.

[7] Gaudio hit his stride after signing with Warner Bros. in 1930, shooting Mervyn LeRoy’s gangster classic Little Caesar (1931), in a harsh style that fit the gritty subject matter.

[8] Gaudio contributed to two seminal war films in 1930, acting as second camera to A.S.C.’s Arthur Edeson for All Quiet on the Western Front, and as cinematographer for Hell’s Angels (1930), handling the dialogue scenes with co-cinematographer Harry Perry as well as the aerial cinematography.

[8] Hell’s Angels won Gaudio his first Oscar nomination for Best Cinematography, a picture that made records from the photographic side, as the film was exposed for two and a half years.

By the time he shot Bordertown (1934), the studio realized her histrionic talents, and Gaudio brought a stark realism to the seedy Mexican setting.

Guadio and director Michael Curtiz collaborated six times, notably on The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), and Kid Galahad (1937), another Bette Davis joint which gave him the opportunity to contrast high-key Art Deco scenes with the smoky interiors of the boxing ring.

[8] Another main collaborator was Mervyn Leroy, with whom Gaudio shot six films, notably Anthony Adverse, for which he won his first and only oscar for the 1936 Academy Award for Best Cinematography, Black-and-White.

Not an inch of any other brand was used in the production, declares Tony Gaudio in an interview with The American Cinematographer[18].“The Eastman company is responsible for many improvements in photography,” he said, “but I am convinced this stock is not only a distinct advance.

No, I don’t think there ever will be anything really better.”[18]Gaudio began the decade of the 1940s while still in collaboration with Warner Bros. With William Keighley, Tony shot The Fighting 69th (1940), which was labeled a “truly brilliant example of screencraft” by The Film Daily.

[8] In 1941, Gaudio lit Raoul Walsh's crime masterwork High Sierra in an ultra realistic, documentary-like fashion that was a precursor of film noir.

[24] In addition, he pioneered the use of the Montage, invented the Mitchell Camera Viewfinder, worked on the first All-talkie and All-color film, as well as revolutionized photographing exterior night scenes during daylight.

While the Bell and Howell produced a superior image due to its innovative pressure plate behind the lens, it was too noisy for sound work, which opened up the market to Mitchell.

"[17]Gaudio commented that color did not slow the process down significantly, and on some days they were able to make as many as 22 different set ups,[17] which for a major studio production was about as fast as a black-and-white picture.

The documentary was implemented by the Cineteca della Calabria, which aroused the interest of a group of young authors from Cosenza and their production company "Open Fields".

These include Patrick Keating and Jonathan Kuntz, or personalities of US cinema,[6] such as the Oscar winner Richard Edlund, special visual effects supervisor of films such as Star Wars, or M. David Mullen, director of photography of The Marvelous Mrs.

[6] In addition, there will be interviews from the president of the Cineteca della Calabria, Eugenio Attanasio, and from the Calabrian director of photography and Oscar winner for Avatar, Mauro Fiore.

"[6]After Gaudio's death, all traces of the Oscar were lost, intersecting a line between the emotional story of the grandchildren and the artistic path of the pioneer cinematographer.