Cinematographer Jordan Klein Sr, who died on 1 October at the age of 98, was best known for his ground-breaking underwater work on many James Bond films, including Thunderball, for which he won an Academy Award. He was also an accomplished underwater photographer, engineer and inventor.
Klein was born in Cleveland, Ohio on 1 December, 1925 but at an early age moved with his family to Miami, Florida, the state in which he would spend much of his life – he died in his home town of Ocala. By 1938 he had become interested in diving.
Klein saw action with the Navy in the Pacific during WW2, and was three days into the journey as part of the first wave to hit Japan when the atomic bombs were dropped.
After the war, he borrowed the money to buy and convert a Navy PT boat into what was claimed to have been one of the first dive-boats on Miami Beach, also going on to open one of its first dive-shops. “Everyone thought I was crazy,” he said. “Nobody is gonna pay you to take them out to go snorkelling or diving on a boat!”
He also modified an old compressor to start a business called Mako Compressors and cater for what he was convinced was the emerging scuba-diving industry.
Goldwyn calls
Samuel Goldwyn of MGM saw a Life magazine story about Klein’s scuba-diving activities and asked him if he could build an underwater housing for one of his studio’s large Mitchell cameras. He misled Goldwyn into believing that he already had photographic experience, while thinking: “I can read, and there’s a library down the street!”
His career in movies would spring from this connection, when producer Darryl Zanuck offered him the role of underwater engineer and cameraman on 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.
Klein designed and built camera housings initially using brass plates and silver, and went on to provide underwater protection for brands that included Rolleiflex, Bolex, Argus, Leica and Stereo, embracing everything from 35mm still cameras to 8mm and 16mm movie cameras, with not only professionals but amateur divers in mind.
One of his products was a plastics underwater stills camera housing, which he claimed sold 19,000 units through Woolworth’s stores.
Klein was involved with some of the early ‘blockbuster’ underwater movies and over his lifetime would work on 78 feature films and many TV series.
As director of underwater engineering and cameraman on Thunderball he built all the underwater vehicles, staged the fight scenes and shot many of the underwater sequences, co-winning an Academy Award for the design and construction of the props, sets and special effects.
This would be followed years later in 2001 with an Oscar for Best Technical Achievement, a recognition of his overall pioneering efforts in developing and applying underwater camera housings for motion pictures.
The CryoLung
In 1967 Klein co-developed with Jacques Cousteau a liquid-oxygen breathing device they called the CryoLung, designed to sustain a diver three to four times longer than conventional scuba gear.
He also directed and filmed news, promotional films and documentaries, such as the shark TV programmes he made from the late 1980s with his son Jordy. Recreationally he was an aviator and a car and boat racer as well as a diver.
Other well-known films on which Klein worked included Creature From The Black Lagoon, The Aquarians, Flipper, You Only Live Twice, Live and Let Die, Never Say Never Again, The Day of the Dolphin, Splash, Jaws, Cocoon, The Abyss and Bermuda Triangle.
TV series included the long-running and influential Sea Hunt from 1954 to 1963, The Six Million Dollar Man, Chips, Miami Vice, X-Files and and SeaQuest.
Also on Divernet: STAN WATERMAN: THE MAN WHO LOVED SHARKS, THE TECHNICAL GENIUS OF PETER SCOONES, COVID-19 CLAIMS CAMERA PIONEER SCHAEFER, MONO MASTER-PHOTOGRAPHER BROOKS DIES
