Emmy Award-winning cinematographer, Bill Butler, who was nominated for an Oscar for his work in “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” and best known for Steven Spielberg’s “Jaws,” died Wednesday, according to the American Society of Cinematographers. He was 101 years old.

Steven Spielberg remembered Bill Butler in a statement saying: “In the movie ‘Jaws’ Bill Butler was the foundation of this rickety, rocking boat called the Orca. He was the only calm in the middle of this storm, and as we began a battle against nature and technology that wore us both down, the audience finally won the war. Bill’s outlook on life was realistic, philosophical and very patient, and I owe him a great deal for his consistent and creative contribution to the film ‘Jaws’.”

Bill Butler was the director of photography on many well-known films of the 1970s, such as “The Conversation”, “Grease”, “Ice Castles” and participated in the “Rocky” film franchise.

Wilmer S. Butler was born in Cripple Creek, Colorado, USA, but grew up mostly in the small Iowa college town of Mount Pleasant. Butler attended Ohio Wesleyan University, Iowa Wesleyan College, and the University of Iowa, studied at the School of Electronics, but graduated with a degree in Engineering.

Butler began his career in the entertainment industry as an engineer at a radio station in Gary, Indiana. He helped design and build the first television stations at the ABC affiliate in Chicago and later at WGN-TV. After WGN went on the air, Butler used live camera for commercials and for locally produced programs.

While working at WGN Butler met a young William Friedkin, who asked him to be the cinematographer on the documentary, “The People vs. Paul Crump’ which was about an Illinois death row inmate. As a result of the 1962 film, the governor commuted Crump’s death sentence. The film experience turned Butler’s interest from television to documentaries.

Butler’s first feature film was Philip Kaufman’s Fearless Frank in 1967, followed by Francis Ford Coppola’s The Rain People (1969), starring James Caan and Shirley Knight and directed by Jack Nicholson “Drive, He Said” (1971).