Garrett Brown (1942)

Garrett Brown

Garrett Brown invented the Oscar-winning Steadicam camera stabilizer and used it on nearly 100 movies, including Rocky and The Shining. The Steadicam liberated cinematography in 1975 by combining the smoothness of dollies and cranes with the remarkable agility of human beings. Garrett’s Skycam and his other sporting ’cams’ still pursue athletes worldwide and chased their inventor into the Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame in ‘09 Brown’s inventions have revolutionized the way we experience the world through the camera’s eye; and the arty, athletic and lucrative profession of Steadicam Operator is known by whimsical acclaim as ‘The Last Great Job in the Business!’ Garrett’s original prototypes are now in the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, his archives are headed to The Library of Congress, and a recent Steadicam improvement just earned him a fourth Oscar and fifth Emmy! Surprisingly, Garrett is neither a scientist nor an engineer, just an extraordinarily motivated, at-times comically challenged, incredibly persistent human being. Even more surprising (to Brown at least) was his 2013 induction into the National Inventors Hall of Fame!