WARREN ROLL / 1922-2008
COURTESY ROLL FAMILY / 1980
Former Honolulu Star-Bulletin chief photographer Warren Roll -- seen here in an airplane over Niihau -- died yesterday in Port Townsend, Wash., and is remembered for his keen, aggressive approach to the news.
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Photographer lived news
Former Star-Bulletin chief photographer Warren Roosevelt Roll was an assertive and audacious newsman who focused on an assignment without awe of the subject or the circumstances.
Former reporter Lyle Nelson remembers covering Vice President Hubert Humphrey on a 1967 Hawaii stop en route to Vietnam. "We were in Warren's old VW Bug following in line behind the official motorcade to the airport. When they drove through a gate and out on the tarmac, Warren followed right through. There was a reception line and we got close to it."
Roll won numerous photography awards while he recorded life in Hawaii from 1956 to 1980. His 1963 photograph of Korean fishermen wading ashore after their boat struck the reef off Magic Island was named best national general news photo of the year by the National Press Photographers Association and World Book Encyclopedia.
WARREN ROLL / STAR-BULLETIN
Brenda Mae John, 3, celebrates statehood.
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Roll, 86, died yesterday in hospice care near his home in Port Townsend, Wash.
"He was a stickler for details. He set high standards for technical excellence," said retired Sacramento Bee photographer Dick Schmidt, who worked at the Star-Bulletin in 1972. "He made such an impact on me, more than any boss in my 40 years of photography."
Former Star-Bulletin writer Steve Sanger of Bellingham, Wash., said, "I worked at a lot of newspapers, and Warren was one of the most professional, and probably the most aggressive, news photographers I ever knew. He was a veteran of two wars, a man who knew boats and how to fly an airplane. For me he was the model of the old-fashioned masculine man," Sanger said. "Beyond all that he was a loyal friend, somebody you could count on no matter what."
Born in Glen Cove, N.Y., Roll served as a photographer's mate in the Navy during World War II and the Korean War and worked eight years as a photographer with the San Rafael Independent Journal in California.
WARREN ROLL / STAR-BULLETIN
A surfer, center, navigates a Waikiki roadway during a storm in about 1965.
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He and his second wife, Mollie, raised their two sons while living aboard a 38-foot ketch, the Flying Walrus, at Ala Wai Boat Harbor. After his retirement, they built a home in Waimea on the Big Island, and later moved to Port Ludlow, Wash., where Roll continued his love affair with the sea, building wooden boats.
Jonah Roll organized a 2004 retrospective show of his father's black-and-white photographic art at the Photography Center in San Francisco.
His friends all remembered Roll's quick wit, finding a humorous edge to news events and people who took themselves too seriously, "a roaring sense of humor that just wouldn't quit," said former reporter Tomi Knaefler. Honolulu photographer Bob Young said, "I always enjoyed his humor, his sarcasm and irony, but not all people in Hawaii would appreciate it."
Schmidt said Roll displayed a recently acquired tattoo when they last met. Inscribed on his chest was "EMS no CPR."
WARREN ROLL / STAR-BULLETIN
Duke Kahanamoku samples poi in 1966.
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"He said, 'I've got a card in my wallet, but this is where they'll look first if I'm in a parking lot somewhere. I don't want any heroics.' Typical Warren, thinking practically."
Schmidt said Roll was "a fierce, independent soul" who insisted on staying in a North Woods home after his wife of 42 years died in 2002. He agreed to enter hospice care just three days before his death.
His survivors include sons Christopher, Degory, both of Melbourne, Fla., Gunnar of Santa Cruz, Calif., and Jonah of San Francisco; daughter Abigail of Honolulu; and 11 grandchildren.
The ashes of Warren and Mollie Roll will be scattered in the Pacific Ocean.
The family suggests that in lieu of flowers, memorial contributions be made in support of any local hospice.
CORRECTION Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Warren Roll was mistakenly credited as William Roll on several caption on this page.
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