Budge Crawley

Frank Radford Crawley (November 14, 1911 – May 13, 1987), known as Budge, was am Academy Award-Winning Canadian cinematographer, director, and producer. He received his first film camera in 1927 as a gift from his father. In 1938, he married Judith Crawley and on their honeymoon, they spent their time making a silent documentary on Quebec's Ile d'Orléans, which won the Hiram Percy Maxim Award for Best Amateur Film in the US.

Career
In partnership with his wife Judy and his father Arthur, he co-founded Crawley Films that year. In 1946, Crawley Films became a limited company.

Budge Crawley was devoted to artistic integrity in his film projects. Starting in the 1960s, he made several feature films, all of which were financial disappointments. In contrast, his documentaries earned Crawley Films one to two million dollars per year in the 1960s.

Budge has been characterized as a filmmaker and producer with artistic integrity, a factor which severely compromized his ability to make financially successful films in the non-sponsored realm of Canadian features during the 1960s and 1970s. Indeed, Crawley believed that by increasing financial risk, filmmakers could improve the quality of their films. He believed that one could not create great art if it came from the security of state-funded enterprise nor from an unscrupulous private sector.

In 1980, Crawley recieved the order of Canada ""in recognition of a unique contribution to film in Canada".

Personal Life
Budge and his wife Judith founded Crawley Films together. In the early 1960s, Crawley and an earlier partner began an affair. Budge and Judy divorced in 1968, and Budge remarried later that year.