John G. Frayne

Class of 1917: Hollywood sound engineer

The work of physicist and sound engineer John George Frayne, which enhanced sound techniques in the early days of “talkies” films in Hollywood, led to him receiving three Academy Awards.

He was born July 8, 1894, in Wexford, Ireland, and immigrated to the United States in 1914. At Ripon College, he majored in physics and mathematics, served as a fellow in physics and assistant in physics, and participated in YMCA, Tennis Club and Latin Club. His future seemed foreshadowed: during his first semester he earned an A+ in the physics course Electricity, Magnetism, Sound and Light.

He received Ph.D.’s in mathematics and physics from the University of Minnesota and served in the U.S. Signal Corps during World War I.

His career included teaching, at the University of Minnesota, California State College in Pomona, Antioch College and California Institute of Technology; as well as working for firms such as AT&T, Marquardt Corp, Western Electric and Westrex Corp.

He was a pioneer in sound recording, integrating sound in films and minimizing sound distortion.

He pioneered the 45-45 stereo disk-cutting system developed by Westrex in the 1950s and gave the first public demonstration of it in 1958; was involved in film sound recording, particularly in the development of variable density recording as opposed to variable area; contributed to the development of stereophonic records; developed sound recording techniques and their reproduction for optical sound recording systems, which led to stereo-optical formats used by films in the 1970s and 1980s; co-invented the sphere densitometer, which won a Scientific or Technical Academy Award in 1941; and co-invented the stereo disc cutter and the inter-modulation techniques of distortion measurements, which won him an Academy Award in 1953.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences awarded him the Gordon E. Sawyer Award in 1984 for lifetime technical achievement in motion picture sound in recognition of “the great engineering advances he brought to the art of motion picture sound recording.”

He served as president of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers and received its Progress Medal. He also was awarded numerous industry honors and gold medals and an honorary degree from Ripon in 1988.

He held patents on 11 inventions in sound recording developed between 1932 and 1959, and was co-author of the classic 1949 textbook “Elements of Sound Recording,” one of the first to have a chapter devoted to magnetic recording from a professional point of view.

Frayne was genially welcoming to Ripon College visitors to his home in California with one caveat: “We are always glad to have alumni visit us when they come to Los Angeles just as long as they do not insist on getting jobs in the studios because it is entirely beyond our power to assist them in that respect!”

He died Oct. 3I, 1990, at the age of 96.