Wenzell Baird Bryant (December 12, 1927 – November 13, 2008) was an American filmmaker. He was well known in documentary circles for his hand-held ability to almost instantaneously capture live action as it was happening. Hired as the cameraman on ''

Gimme Shelter "Gimme Shelter" is a song by English rock band the Rolling Stones. Released as the opening track from band's 1969 album ''Let It Bleed''. The song covers topics of war, murder, rape and fear. It features prominent guest vocals by American singer ...

'', the

Albert Maysles Albert Maysles (November 26, 1926 – March 5, 2015) and his brother David Maysles (January 10, 1931 – January 3, 1987; ) were an American documentary filmmaking team known for their work in the Direct Cinema style. Their best-known films i ...

film of The Rolling Stones 1969 American Tour, Baird caught on camera the fatal stabbing of concertgoer Meredith Hunter by

Hells Angel The Hells Angels Motorcycle Club (HAMC) is a worldwide outlaw motorcycle club whose members typically ride Harley-Davidson motorcycles. In the United States and Canada, the Hells Angels are incorporated as the Hells Angels Motorcycle Corporatio ...

Alan Passaro at the

Altamont Free Concert The Altamont Speedway Free Festival was a counterculture rock concert in the United States, held on Saturday, December 6, 1969, at the Altamont Speedway outside of Livermore, California. Approximately 300,000 attended the concert, and some ant ...

in December 1969. Born in

Columbus, Indiana Columbus is a city in and the county seat of Bartholomew County, Indiana, United States. The population was 50,474 at the 2020 census. The relatively small city has provided a unique place for noted Modern architecture and public art, commissio ...

, his parents were Dr. William Bryant, a surgeon, and Daisy née Mortimer. On his mother's side he is a descendant of the Revolutionary War patriot Famous Mortimer and also of the Revolutionary War heroine Charlotte Est Wenzell. Bryant attended

Deep Springs College Deep Springs College (known simply as Deep Springs or DS) is a private, selective two-year college in Deep Springs, California. With the number of undergraduates restricted to 26, the college is one of the smallest institutions of higher educat ...

in Big Pine, California, and graduated from

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

. In the 1950s he lived in Paris and was a writer, living with

William S. Burroughs William Seward Burroughs II (; February 5, 1914 – August 2, 1997) was an American writer and visual artist, widely considered a primary figure of the Beat Generation and a major postmodern author who influenced popular cultur ...

Allen Ginsberg Irwin Allen Ginsberg (; June 3, 1926 – April 5, 1997) was an American poet and writer. As a student at Columbia University in the 1940s, he began friendships with William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, forming the core of the Beat Gener ...

, and

Jack Kerouac Jean-Louis Lebris de Kérouac (; March 12, 1922 – October 21, 1969), known as Jack Kerouac, was an American novelist and poet who, alongside William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, was a pioneer of the Beat Generation. Of French-Canadian a ...

. Bryant wrote ''Play This Love With Me'' (1955). Fluent in French, he also wrote the first English translation of

Pauline Réage Anne Cécile Desclos (23 September 1907 – 27 April 1998) was a French journalist and novelist who wrote under the pen names Dominique Aury and Pauline Réage. She is best known for her erotic novel '' Story of O'' (1954). Early life Born i ...

's erotic novel ''

Story of O ''Story of O'' (french: Histoire d'O, link=no, ) is an erotic novel published in 1954 by French author Anne Desclos under the pen name Pauline Réage, and published in French by Jean-Jacques Pauvert. Desclos did not reveal herself as the autho ...

''. He began his filmmaking career in the early sixties shooting ''The Seducers'' (1962), ''

Greenwich Village Story ''Greenwich Village Story'', a 1963 feature film written and directed by Jack O'Connell, centres on the bohemian milieu of Greenwich Village. The female protagonist, Genie (played by actress Melinda Cordell, credited here as Melinda Plank), a tale ...

'' (1963), '' The Cool World'' (1963) and ''

Celebration at Big Sur ''Celebration at Big Sur'' (also known simply as ''Celebration'') is a film of the 1969 Big Sur Folk Festival in Big Sur, California, featuring Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, Joan Baez, Joni Mitchell and others. Released in 1971, the film was di ...

'' (1971). He worked on ''

Easy Rider ''Easy Rider'' is a 1969 American independent drug culture road drama film written by Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, and Terry Southern, produced by Fonda, and directed by Hopper. Fonda and Hopper play two bikers who travel through the American So ...

'' (1969), filming the famous LSD scene with

Dennis Hopper Dennis Lee Hopper (May 17, 1936 – May 29, 2010) was an American actor, filmmaker and photographer. He attended the Actors Studio, made his first television appearance in 1954, and soon after appeared in ''Giant'' (1956). In the next ten years ...

in a

New Orleans New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans
Merriam-Webster. ; french: La Nouvelle-Orléans , es, Nuev ...

cemetery. He later said that filming was "chaotic" at that point, and several of the crew had quit. "I showed up with my camera, and nobody else was there." He also worked on the Academy Award-winning film, '' Broken Rainbow'' (1985), a documentary about the

Navajo The Navajo (; British English: Navaho; nv, Diné or ') are a Native American people of the Southwestern United States. With more than 399,494 enrolled tribal members , the Navajo Nation is the largest federally recognized tribe in the United ...

, and ''Heart of Tibet'' (1991), a film about the

Dalai Lama Dalai Lama (, ; ) is a title given by the Tibetan people to the foremost spiritual leader of the Gelug or "Yellow Hat" school of Tibetan Buddhism, the newest and most dominant of the four major schools of Tibetan Buddhism. The 14th and current Dal ...

. He was a practicing

Tibetan Buddhist Tibetan Buddhism (also referred to as Indo-Tibetan Buddhism, Lamaism, Lamaistic Buddhism, Himalayan Buddhism, and Northern Buddhism) is the form of Buddhism practiced in Tibet and Bhutan, where it is the dominant religion. It is also in majo ...

, and followed

Chögyam Trungpa Chögyam Trungpa (Wylie transliteration, Wylie: ''Chos rgyam Drung pa''; March 5, 1939 – April 4, 1987) was a Tibetan Buddhism, Tibetan Buddhist meditation master and holder of both the Kagyu and Nyingma lineages of Tibetan Buddhism, the 11th ...

when he introduced Tibetan Buddhism to the west in

Boulder, Colorado Boulder is a home rule city that is the county seat and most populous municipality of Boulder County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 108,250 at the 2020 United States census, making it the 12th most populous city in Color ...

. Bryant died in

Hemet, California Hemet is a city in the San Jacinto Valley in Riverside County, California. It covers a total area of , about half of the valley, which it shares with the neighboring city of San Jacinto. The population was 89,833 at the 2020 census. The foundin ...

, on November 13, 2008.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bryant, Baird 2008 deaths Beat Generation writers American cinematographers Deep Springs College alumni Harvard University alumni People from Indiana 1927 births