Cameraman

Atlanta reliever John Rocker bumped into a television cameraman yesterday, about 31/2 hours before a game against the Cardinals in St. Louis. The cameraman, Tom Stasiak, and reporter Frank Cusumano, who both work for KSDK, both said the minor collision was intentional. The station played the incident prominently during its early evening newscasts, running footage of Rocker in street clothes apparently going out of his way to cause the contact. The Atlanta reliever then said "excuse me," on his way down the tunnel to the Braves' clubhouse, Cusumano said.

Mike Tyson was questioned by police early yesterday after a television cameraman accused the former heavyweight champion of assaulting him outside a nightclub in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Tyson could face charges of assault and destruction of property, a police spokeswoman said. A court hearing was scheduled for today, but Tyson can send a representative and is not required to appear. Carlos Eduardo da Silva, a cameraman with the Brazilian television network SBT, told police Tyson pushed him and threw his camera to the ground outside the club, then removed a videotape and put it in his pocket.

Arthur Spieller, 79, of Broomall, who won six Emmy awards as a cameraman for NFL Films and who filmed every one of the first 31 Super Bowls, died of heart failure Sept. 19 at home. The first title game was in 1967 between the Green Bay Packers and the Kansas City Chiefs in a matchup that was called, at the time, the NFL-AFL World Championship Game. The next season, Mr. Spieller worked the NFL Championship game that was to become known as the Ice Bowl. The game - in Green Bay, Wis., between the Packers and the Dallas Cowboys - was played in temperatures that reached 15 degrees below zero.

Sylvester Stallone, Mister Tough Guy on the screen, has a few rough and tough words for a TV cameraman who filed a lawsuit claiming that Sly roughed him up. The actor called cameraman Cesar Santos a "dirt bag trying to extort money. " "This man is a liar," Stallone said by telephone Saturday from Puerto Rico, where he's in the final days of shooting his new movie, Assassins. Santos claimed in a $550,000 federal civil suit filed Friday in San Juan that he was stopped on the set that Monday, and assaulted and harassed by the actor and his four bodyguards.

Walter E. Dombrow, 77, of Wayne, retired director of photography for such CBS news programs as 60 Minutes, died of congestive heart failure Monday at Bryn Mawr Hospital. "He was one of the great pioneer cameramen," said Joe Illigasch, operations manager for 60 Minutes. "He developed the art. People learned in his footsteps. " Mr. Dombrow served in the Army Air Corps as a tail gunner on a B-29 bomber during World War II. He took up photography and filmmaking during the war while recovering from injuries suffered in an airplane crash landing.

Edward S. Tycenski, 80, of Wynnewood, a New England high school baseball star and longtime Philadelphia TV cameraman, died of heart failure Monday, June 14, at Lankenau Hospital. Mr. Tycenski worked for WCAU-TV from 1966 until he retired in 1995, and was a news cameraman there from 1980. Born in Thomaston, Conn., Mr. Tycenski graduated from Thomaston High School in 1948. He earned an athletic scholarship to Boston University and received his bachelor's degree in communications in 1953.

Willie A. Walker Jr., 51, a WPVI-TV (Channel 6) cameraman who brought skill, sensitivity and news judgment to his Philadelphia stories, died of liver disease Friday at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital. He lived in Glenside. Mr. Walker worked at television stations in Charleston, S.C., and Buffalo, N.Y., before coming to Philadelphia in 1986 to work for Channel 6's Action News. "Willie was reassuring to work with," said Denise James, a Channel 6 reporter. "He was not afraid to immerse himself in community problems.

William Michael Boyer, 65, who turned heads when seen strutting in suits while toting a television camera to news scenes for KYW-TV (Channel 3), died June 6 of a heart attack at home in West Philadelphia. "Mike was the cameraman of all minority cameramen in this city," said Pete Kane, also a cameraman. "Because of Mike, Channel 10 hired me as a cameraman in 1980. " Mr. Boyer, eldest of nine children, was the "man of the house" since childhood, said his sister Winifred Gaines.

About a month ago, the president of NFL Films came upon a painting of a feisty old sea captain at the Wyeth museum in Chadds Ford. Under it, the inscription read, "Take a good look at me for when I'm gone you'll not see the likes of me again. " He immediately thought of Mo Kellman. "He was a great cameraman," Steve Sabol, the NFL Films president, wrote Kellman's family recently, as death drew nearer. "No one filmed a football game better before him, nor has anyone done better since.

ABC "World News Tonight" co-anchor Bob Woodruff and a cameraman were seriously injured yesterday when the Iraqi Army vehicle they were traveling in was attacked with an explosive device. Both men suffered head injuries, and Woodruff also had broken bones. They were in stable condition following surgery at a U.S. military hospital in Iraq, and were to be evacuated to medical facilities in Germany, said ABC News President David Westin. "We take this as good news, but the next few days will be critical," Westin said.

A YOUNG man strides purposefully into the woods as a cameraman asks what he's about to do. "About to go beat up this bum," the man in the video says. And that's exactly what he does, punching and kicking a homeless man in the face, bloodying his nose, before wishing him a Merry Christmas. The videotaped assault has led to criminal charges against a 20-year-old New Jersey man and a 17-year-old boy accused of filming the assault while egging the attacker on. "Just dive on him!

J. Douglas Moran Jr., 49, of Norristown, a cameraman who made a documentary about his struggle with mental illness, died of pancreatic cancer on Saturday, Oct. 29, at home. Mr. Moran grew up in Chestnut Hill, and graduated in 1980 from Chestnut Hill Academy, where he performed in theatrical productions and played on the golf team. He spent a postgraduate year at the Lawrenceville School in New Jersey, then studied acting for a year at HB Studio in New York City. Returning to Chestnut Hill, Mr. Moran worked for Killian's Hardware and Future Video while pursuing an acting career at Stagecrafters Theater.

The violent deaths of three journalists overseas in the past week are a sad reminder of the high price being paid to preserve press freedom. Acclaimed British documentary maker Tim Hetherington, 40, and American photographer Chris Hondros, 41, died in an explosion in the Libyan city of Misurata. On Monday, Salvadoran television cameraman Alfredo Hurtado, 41, was shot to death by suspected gang members. Two other journalists were killed in the last month in Libya. Mohammed al-Nabbous, who founded online Libya Alhurra TV, was shot in Benghazi, and Ali Hassan al-Jaber, a cameraman with Al-Jazeera, was shot during an ambush near the same city.

Edward S. Tycenski, 80, of Wynnewood, a New England high school baseball star and longtime Philadelphia TV cameraman, died of heart failure Monday, June 14, at Lankenau Hospital. Mr. Tycenski worked for WCAU-TV from 1966 until he retired in 1995, and was a news cameraman there from 1980. Born in Thomaston, Conn., Mr. Tycenski graduated from Thomaston High School in 1948. He earned an athletic scholarship to Boston University and received his bachelor's degree in communications in 1953.

What we're talking about after Eagles' win over the Broncos: -- The return: Brian Dawkins did his "Weapon X" routine exiting the Broncos' tunnel, rolling forward, rolling backward with a pike, shoving a cameraman out of the way (the cameraman was inside the players' high-five alley) and delighting a stadium full of people wearing his old Eagles No. 20 jersey. -- The return, Part 2: Running back Brian Westbrook, having missed seven of the last eight games with two concussions, looked tentative in his limited action.

William G. Wilson, 90, a news and sports cameraman whose career spanned 40 years, died Oct. 28 at home in Folcroft. Events Mr. Wilson filmed included the Indianapolis 500, the Masters golf tournament, and NHL and NFL games; he worked at the first Super Bowl, in 1967. In 1980, the year he retired, he filmed the Phillies World Series win. Thirty years earlier, he had chronicled the team's World Series loss. Mr. Wilson was a contract cameraman for local production companies Louis W. Kellman, Newsreel Labs, TelRa, and NFL Films.

It's not easy mixing edgy satire and ethnic cleansing, the high-speed antics of a buddy picture with the grim business of torture and rape. And Richard Shepard's The Hunting Party doesn't always succeed in its tricky juggling act, but the balls are up there, spinning. Just having thrown them aloft is a feat. A frantic, fictionalized adaptation of Scott K. Anderson's Esquire article about a band of journalists on the trail of a Bosnian war criminal, The Hunting Party stars Richard Gere as a veteran TV newsman and Terrence Howard as his longtime cameraman/compatriot.

Edward J. Yates, 87, who directed Philadelphia's seminal dance show American Bandstand from its start in West Philadelphia, died of multiple organ failure Friday at Fair Oaks nursing home in Media, where he had been for two months. He lived in West Chester. "Ed was an extraordinary director . . . he managed to grab every exciting moment on American Bandstand," Dick Clark said yesterday from his Los Angeles office. "The pictures he created influenced a whole generation of young people across America.

ABC "World News Tonight" co-anchor Bob Woodruff and a cameraman were seriously injured yesterday when the Iraqi Army vehicle they were traveling in was attacked with an explosive device. Both men suffered head injuries, and Woodruff also had broken bones. They were in stable condition following surgery at a U.S. military hospital in Iraq, and were to be evacuated to medical facilities in Germany, said ABC News President David Westin. "We take this as good news, but the next few days will be critical," Westin said.

Mike Tyson was questioned by police early yesterday after a television cameraman accused the former heavyweight champion of assaulting him outside a nightclub in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Tyson could face charges of assault and destruction of property, a police spokeswoman said. A court hearing was scheduled for today, but Tyson can send a representative and is not required to appear. Carlos Eduardo da Silva, a cameraman with the Brazilian television network SBT, told police Tyson pushed him and threw his camera to the ground outside the club, then removed a videotape and put it in his pocket.