Biography: Lenwood Ballard "Bill" Abbott, A.S.C. (June 13, 1908 – September 28, 1985) was an American special effects expert, cinematographer and cameraman. He became the head of the Special Effects Department at 20th Century Fox in 1957, a post he held until retirement in 1970. However, he was called out of retirement to work on the TV series M*A*S*H in 1972 (Abbott had worked on the film on which the series was based). Abbott was a member of the American Society of Cinematographers. Description above from the Wikipedia article L.B. Abbott, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.