Richard M. Rawlings Jr., Cinematographer Who Split a Season of ‘Charlie’s Angels’ With His Dad, Dies at 82
Richard M. Rawlings Jr., the four-time Emmy-nominated cinematographer who divvied up third-season episodes of Charlie’s Angels with his father and shot other shows like Matt Houston, L.A. Law, Boston Public and Desperate Housewives, has died. He was 82.
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Rawlings Jr. died June 30 in Flagstaff, Arizona, his family announced.
His father, Richard L. Rawlings, was a two-time Emmy-nominated cinematographer, and their careers overlapped in 1978-79 on ABC’s Charlie’s Angels, with each of them handling half of the 22 episodes that season.
When his dad left the series, drafted by producer Aaron Spelling to serve as the main D.P on the new primetime soap Dynasty, Rawlings Jr. continued with Charlie’s Angels for its final two seasons through June 1981.
In February 2014, he received the Television Career Achievement Award from the American Society of Cinematographers, and Charlie’s Angels star Cheryl Ladd was on hand for the occasion. “This talented man worked his ass off for years to make me look good,” she said.
Richard Maxwell Rawlings Jr. was born in Hollywood on Oct. 9, 1943. His father shot Don Siegel’s neo-noir classic The Killers (1964) but worked mostly in television, shooting multiple episodes of such shows as Highway Patrol, Home Run Derby, Bat Masterson, Sea Hunt, Gilligan’s Island, The Wild Wild West, The Doris Day Show, Kung Fu and the Kate Jackson-starring Scarecrow and Mrs. King.
Rawlings Jr. was raised in North Hollywood and spent many summers as a teenager at Culver Academies in Culver, Indiana, before graduating from Ulysses S. Grant High School in 1961.
He started out a year later as a messenger at Warner Bros. and soon was working for his dad as an assistant camera operator on Gilligan’s Island and The Doris Day Show. Those gigs, he told the ASC, were “the most important in my career. In his own patient way, [his father] passed to me his great knowledge of lighting and composition.” (He was known as “Junior” to many in the industry.)
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The younger Rawlings continued as an operator on shows including The Blue Knight, The Waltons and Eight Is Enough. When he made his cinematographer debut on the seventh episode of Charlie’s Angels, which aired on Nov. 1, 1978, he had just turned 35 and is thought to have been one of the youngest D.P.s in Hollywood history.
(Rawlings Sr. had started work on the Spelling show by shooting all 24 episodes of season two. His son did 52 episodes, so for those keeping score, the pair shot 87 of the series’ 109 installments.)
Rawlings Jr. then segued to two other Spelling-produced shows at ABC, the Robert Stack-starring Strike Force for its lone 1981-82 season and the Lee Horsley-starring Matt Houston for three seasons, from 1982-85.
He received his Emmy noms in 1988 for his work on the ABC police procedural Ohara, starring Pat Morita; in 1989 for Paradise, the CBS Western starring Horsley; in 1993 for the NBC cop drama Reasonable Doubts, starring Mark Harmon and Marlee Matlin; and in 1995 for Big Dreams & Broken Hearts: The Dottie West Story, a CBS telefilm starring Michele Lee as the country singer.
He also spent a season (1993-94) on NBC’s L.A. Law, parts of three seasons (2000-04) on ABC’s Boston Public and parts of two seasons (2005-07) on ABC’s Desperate Housewives and shot episodes of Stingray, Square Pegs, Chicago Hope and Gilmore Girls as well.
Survivors include his daughter, Kami; his son, Matt; his grandsons, Chase and Wyatt; and his sisters, Carole and Colleen. His wife, Diane, whom he married in 1967, died in 2003.
