Baird Bryant

Wenzell Baird Bryant was an American filmmaker, b. (Columbus, Indiana, December 12, 1927 – d. Hemet, California, November 13, 2008). Baird Bryant, as he was known, was well known in documentary circles for his hand-held ability to almost instantaneously capture live action as it was happening. Hired as the cameraman on the Albert Maysles film of the Rolling Stones Gimme Shelter, Baird caught on-camera the fatal stabbing of concertgoer Meredith Hunter by Hells Angel Alan Passaro at the Altamont Free Concert in December 1969.

As a cinematographer, Bryant also worked on Easy Rider(1969), filming the famous LSD scene with Dennis Hopper in a New Orleans cemetery. He also shot footage for the Academy Award-winning film, Broken Rainbow (1985).

Baird began his filmmaking career in the early sixties shooting The Seducers(1962), The Greenwich Village Story (1963), The Cool World(1963) and many others. Later he also shot Celebration at Big Sur(1971), Heart of Tibet(1991) adding to his long filmmaking résumé. Never one to rest on his laurels, Baird worked in numerous capacities on both documentaries and features from to doing production sound to writing to producing.

In the 1950s Baird lived in Paris and was a writer, living with William S. Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, and Jack Kerouac'. Bryant wrote ‘Play This Love With Me (1955). He also wrote the first translation of Pauline Réage's erotic novel Story of O. In 1973 Baird spent the summer teaching film-making at the Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado. He was co-producing, with Wendy Girard, and shooting a documentary on environmental solutions when he died.

He attended Deep Springs College in Big Pine, California, and graduated from Harvard University. He was fluent in French and was a life-long practicing Tibetan Buddhist.

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References
  1. Perrone, Pierre (5 December 2008). "Obituary". The Independent (UK). London. Retrieved 22 April 2011.
  2. "Obituary". LA Times. 16 November 2008. Retrieved 22 April 2011.


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