Natalie Dunfee (1878-1965) was a former art student who, in 1902, married a chemist called Herbert T Kalmus. He went on to found the Technicolor Motion Picture Corporation, and oversaw the development of the Technicolor camera and its modes of film development.
Natalie Kalmus became the executive in charge of the company’s art department, which she developed into a role involving her acting as “color consultant” on every picture filmed using the Technicolor process, and receiving an onscreen credit as such. Few people have received so many credits for doing so little.
Kalmus had strong opinions about the use of colour, famously producing a colour chart which talked, in a vaguely New Age fashion, about the vibrations and radiances that emanated from certain colours. She and her colleagues attempted to enforce a naturalistic aesthetic to films photographed in Technicolor, effectively attempting to inhibit the full brilliance (in every sense) of their product. No one enjoys Technicolor because it is life-like.
Kalmus’s dogmatic ideas frequently brought her into conflict with the artists actually creating the films: she was an executive, while William Cameron Menzies and Vincente Minnelli were artists.
Here involvement in Technicolor ended in 1948, when a court case revealed that she and Herbert Kalmus had been secretly divorced since 1922.
Natalie Kalmus’s first onscreen credit on an MGM musical was The Cat and the Fiddle, as Technicolor Art Director, though she was probably involved in earlier pictures with two-strip Technicolor sequences. She subsequently appeared in the credits for Ice Follies of 1939, The Wizard of Oz, Bitter Sweet, Smilin’ Through, Du Barry was a Lady, Best Foot Forward, Broadway Rhythm, Bathing Beauty, Thousands Cheer, Meet Me in St Louis, Anchors Aweigh, Thrill of a Romance, Yolanda and the Thief, The Harvey Girls, Ziegfeld Follies, Holiday in Mexico, Easy to Wed, Good News, Till the Clouds Roll By, Fiesta, This Time for Keeps, A Date with Judy, Three Daring Daughters, On an Island with You, Summer Holiday, Easter Parade, Luxury Liner, The Pirate, Words and Music, In the Good Old Summertime, Neptune’s Daughter, The Kissing Bandit, Take Me Out to the Ball Game and The Barkleys of Broadway.
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