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American cinematographer Allen Daviau began his career in the 1960s by photographing publicity films for musical artists such as Jimi Hendrix and The Who. He started out in television in the late 1970s, lensing such above-average TV movies as The Boy Who Drank Too Much (1980). During his lengthy association with Steven Spielberg, Daviau manned the cameras on E.T. (1982), The Color Purple (1984), and Empire of the Sun (1987) and received Oscar nominations for all three films. He also collaborated with directors as diverse as Albert Brooks (Defending Your Life [1991]), Barry Levinson (Avalon [1990] and Bugsy [1991]) and Peter Weir (Fearless [1993]). Allen Daviau made a rare appearance in front of the cameras in Visions of Light, a 1993 documentary spotlighting several top cinematographers.