George Frederic Cannons

George Cannons full name George Frederic Cannons was a Hollywood portrait photographer of the 1930s. Professionally known as Cannons of Hollywood. Cannons worked in both Hollywood and London.

George Cannons was born in 1897 and went to Hollywood after the Great War. His reputation as a stills photographer was first established during the silent film period working for Mack Sennett and specialised in portraits of Sennett's bathing beauties. In the early 1930s he continued working in Hollywood with portraits of leading stars including Dolores Del Rio and Jean Harlow. After returning to England in 1934 he set up his own studio in Dover Street in central London known as Cannons of Hollywood and exploited his Hollywood credentials and specialised in glamour portraits. Cannons found work hard to come by due to the number of established photographers in London’s West End. This led Cannons to seek work as a stills photographer for J. Arthur Rank who was based at Pinewood Studios and he was assigned to work with Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger on two of their finest films. In 1946 he created the colour portraits of Jean Simmons during the filming of Black Narcissus. These images were featured in film annuals like Film Review by F. Maurice Speed.

In 1948 he was promoted to the position of principal stills photographer on The Red Shoes and responsible for the iconic stills of Moira Shearer during the ballet sequence. His publicity portraits of Moira Shearer, Anton Walbrook, Leonide Massine and Ludmilla Tcherina for The Red Shoes are also particularly striking. This undoubtedly elevated his career and along with Fred Daniels he was credited as the best portrait photographer to work with Powell and Pressburger. He continued to work for the Rank Organisation and in 1949 he took a series of portraits of Valerie Hobson which are in the National Portrait Gallery collection in London. He died in 1972.