Merritt B. Gerstad
American cinematographer (1900–1974)
Merritt Brindley Edward Gerstad (July 5, 1900 – March 1, 1974) was an American cinematographer of silent and early sound films.
Career
Merritt B. Gerstad was born in Chicago on July 5, 1900.
After beginning as a cinematographer on films for Universal, he worked for MGM, working with director Tod Browning on (the lost) London After Midnight (1927) and Freaks (1932), and Sam Wood on the Marx Brothers A Night at the Opera (1935). Later he was at Warner Bros. for Watch on the Rhine (1943) starring Bette Davis, Conflict (1945) with Humphrey Bogart in the lead, and the Gershwin biopic Rhapsody in Blue (1945), his last credit.
He died in Orange County, California on March 1, 1974, and was buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Oct 15, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q3306609. VIAF identifies the subject as 80364375. The Library of Congress control number is n85201920. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1900, 1974, 1927 and 1932.
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This entry incorporates text from “Merritt B. Gerstad” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.