Easy Rider cameraman Kovacs dies

Kovacs is survived by his wife, two daughters and a granddaughter

Hollywood cinematographer Laszlo Kovacs, renowned for his work on the 1969 film Easy Rider, has died at 74.

Kovacs, whose camerawork featured in more than 70 films in a career spanning five decades, also directed photography for the Oscar-winning film Paper Moon.

The Hungarian, who fled his country during the 1956 uprising, also worked on My Best Friend's Wedding and Miss Congeniality during his later career.

In 2002 he won a life award from the American Society of Cinematographers.

'Fascinated'

"I think he's one of the great cameraman of the New Hollywood era," said Paper Moon director Peter Bogdanovich, in an interview with the Los Angeles Times newspaper.

"Kovacs could film air like nobody I had ever seen," added Bob Rafelson, director of Five Easy Pieces, on which Kovacs also worked.

"There's something palpable about the air that somehow or other he could make visible on film: You could sense the density of the air, the small particles of colour."

Kovacs fell in love with film during his childhood in Hungary, later becoming interested in cinematography as a student at Budapest's Academy of Drama and Film.

Kovacs could film air like nobody I had ever seen Film-maker Bob Rafelson

He shot footage of the country's unsuccessful uprising against communist rule in 1956 with a borrowed camera hidden in a shopping bag, according to an obituary on the American Society of Cinematographers' website.

Some of the footage was used many years later in a US TV documentary.

Kovacs was at first unsure about cult biker movie Easy Rider when actor Dennis Hopper approached him with the project, but changed his mind.

"I was fascinated by the aspect of two young men and I had a chance to put in this third person - this landscape, this character," Kovacs told the Albuquerque Journal last year.

Hopper said he could never have made the film without him.

The movie went on to secure two Oscar nominations, including best supporting actor for Jack Nicholson.