be shot using the Cinemascope process. The widescreen aspect ratio was an almost unparalleled challenge for Shamroy. While he helped many directors at Fox in the 1950s to adapt to the requirements of Cinemascope, Shamroy never really liked the new process. In an interview with Charles Higham, Shamroy exclaimed: "But those widescreen 'revolutions'; oh my God! You got a stage play again, you put pictures back to the earliest sound day...But though it wrecked the art of film for a decade, widescreen saved the picture business." Despite his reservations about Cinemascope, he became an industry pioneer in the 1950s/60s rush to develop new film formats. In 1956, he utilized Fox's Cinemascope 55 process. Here, a 55mm strip of film offered increased clarity in both color and definition. Although The King and I (1956) was shot using the process, it was only released in 35mm reduction prints. Two years later Shamroy photographed South Pacific in a new process called Todd-AO. With a film size of 65mm and more versatile projectors able to adapt to any film gauge, Shamroy's technique was apparent. Shamroy shot three other films in this way: Porgy and Bess (1959), Cleopatra (1963), and The Agony and the Ecstasy (1965). Shamroy once noted: "The obtrusive camera is like a chattering person—something we can do without. It's okay for the camera to join the conversation, so to speak, but it must never dominate. It must never distract from the story. The real art of cinematography lies in the camera's ability to match the varied moods of players and story, or the pace of the scene." Shamroy was notable for being gruff and short-tempered, regularly clashing with directors Rouben Mamoulian, John M. Stahl, and Otto Preminger. He was also known for being a perfectionist, something that Fritz Lang and Henry Fonda found irritating during filming of You Only Live Once. He once claimed that Lee Garmes "will never see the day that he's as good as I am and that goes for anybody in the motion picture business", implying that he saw himself as better than any other cinematographer. Family He was married three times and had four children. On November 1, 1925, he married Rosamond Marcus, who gave birth to his son, Paul Shamroy (August 24, 1926 - May 12, 1969). They divorced in February 1937. He then married Audrey Mason, daughter of E. Mason Hopper, on February 2, 1938.