Edmund DiGiulio, who headed the company that invented the Steadicam, died at his Malibu home Friday at age 76, after a long bout with congestive heart failure.
DiGiulio is considered to be one of the greatest technological innovators in film. He received a lifetime-achievement Academy Award in 2001. He also earned three technical awards and a medal of commendation from the academy.
DiGiulio went to work with IBM in 1950 after graduating from Columbia University. He soon got a job with Mitchell Camera Corp., where he worked on advancements in film technology. There, he developed a reflex-viewing system for movie cameras, which earned him a technical honor at the 1969 Academy Awards.
DiGiulio later joined Cinema Products Corp, where he worked on films with the late director Stanley Kubrick. Together, they developed ultra-high-speed lenses to capture candlelit scenes in 1975’s “Barry Lyndon.”
As the head of Cinema Products in the 1970s, DiGiulio oversaw the invention of the Steadicam by Garrett Brown. The Steadicam is a mounting system that provides stable images while allowing operators to move freely with a movie camera slung to their torsos. Brown and the company’s engineering staff received an Oscar for the system in 1978.
DiGiulio was a five-time chairman of the academy’s Scientific and Technical Committee. He was also a fellow of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers, a fellow of the British Kinematograph Sound and Television Society and an associate member of the American Society of Cinematographers.
DiGiulio is survived by his wife, Louise, his daughter, Amanda DiGiulio Richmond and a granddaughter, Samantha Victoria Richmond.
A memorial service will take place at the Pierce Brothers Mortuary, located at 1218 Glendon Ave. in Westwood, on Saturday at 1 p.m.