L. B. Abbot; Oscar-Winning Cinematographer

L. B. (Bill) Abbott, a cinematographer who won four Oscars and a like amount of Emmys in a 55-year career spanning 300 motion pictures and hundreds of more television segments, died Saturday in Los Angeles.

The son of an early Los Angeles portrait photographer, Lenwood Ballard Abbott followed a natural attraction for cameras into the Hollywood studios where he landed his first job (at $4 a day) filming some special effects sequences for “What Price Glory,” the 1926 Fox Film Corp. classic. That marked the beginning of an affiliation with Fox (soon to become 20th Century-Fox) that lasted until his retirement in 1970.

Abbott became one of the most skilled special effects cameramen in the industry, winning Academy Awards for his work on “Doctor Doolittle,” “Tora! Tora! Tora!” “The Poseidon Adventure” and “Logan’s Run.”

He was honored equally by the television industry with Emmys, winning two for “Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea,” and one each for “The Time Tunnel” and “City Beneath the Sea.”

At his retirement, Abbott was director of all special effects for 20th Century-Fox but he continued to work as a consultant and special effects director for many studios until shortly before his death.

Last year he published a book, “Special Effects--Wire, Tape and Rubber Band Style,” a series of anecdotes about the jerry-built devices used in such supposedly sophisticated pictures as “Cleopatra,” “The Towering Inferno,” “The Lost World” and many of the other movies he photographed. The entertainment newspaper Variety called the book “richly unique . . . for the special effects practitioner and the fan.”

Abbott is survived by his wife, Muriel, two sons and five grandchildren.