John Bailey, who presided over the film academy during the initial #MeToo reckoning, dies at 81


LOS ANGELES (AP) — John Bailey, a cinematographer who led the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences during the initial #MeToo reckoning, died Friday at 81.

Bailey died “peacefully in his sleep” in Los Angeles, his wife, Carol Littleton, said in a statement distributed by the film academy.

Bailey — who worked on films ranging from “Ordinary People” to “Groundhog Day” to “How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days” — was the first cinematographer to preside over the Academy, serving two terms that spanned 2017-2019.

Those were tumultuous years for the film industry. When Bailey took over, the Oscars alone had been grappling with falling ratings, controversies over the homogeneity of its choices (#OscarsSoWhite) and the infamous envelope flub in 2017 that marred the best picture win for “Moonlight.” Scarcely two months into his presidency, The New York Times and The New Yorker released bombshell reports about sexual assault allegations against movie mogul Harvey Weinstein that ignited an industry-wide reckoning about power structures and abuses.



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