Orville Nix
| Orville Nix | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Orville Orhel Nix April 16, 1911 |
| Died | January 17, 1972 (aged 60) Dallas, Texas, U.S. |
| Resting place | Edgewood Cemetery |
| Nationality | American |
| Spouse(s) | Ella Louise Robison (m. 1938–72) (his death) |
| Children | 1 |
Orville Orhel Nix (April 16, 1911 – January 17, 1972) was a witness to the assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963. His filming of the event, capturing only the last few seconds of the drama, is considered nearly as important as the Abraham Zapruder film.
Nix was born in Texas, the son of Myrtle (née Mabra) and James Allan Nix. He was reported to have only a fourth grade education and later worked as an air conditioning engineer working for the General Services Administration in Dallas. He was married to Ella Louise Robison in 1938 with whom he had one son, Orville, Jr.
On November 22, 1963, Nix walked from his office in the Terminal Annex building located on the south side of Dealey Plaza to the northwest corner of the intersection of Main Street and Houston Street with a Keystone Auto-Zoom Model K-810 8 mm movie camera. Nix filmed the presidential limousine and motorcade as it entered the Plaza, then quickly moved 20 to 60 feet west of Houston Street to the south curb of Main Street where he captured the last part of the assassination and the grassy knoll in the background. Shortly after the motorcade had left Dealey Plaza, he filmed people running from Main Street to Elm Street.
Orville Nix's film is darker than the others, because he used Type A indoor film, and did not have the proper filter to correct this.
The Nix film was obtained as a result of a notice that the FBI gave to film processing plants in the Dallas area, that the FBI would be interested in obtaining or knowing about any film they processed relating to the assassination. When Nix heard about this from his processor, he delivered the film to the FBI office in Dallas on December 1, 1963. It was returned to him three days later.
United Press International purchased the copyright for $5,000 and took possession of the original film from Nix on December 6, 1963. Reese Schonfeld, a UPI executive and later the founding president of CNN, stewarded the film for UPI. UPI distributed frame enlargements to its news subscribers the following day. The original was examined by the House Select Committee on Assassinations in 1978. When UPI returned the copyright and all its copies to the Nix family in 1992, the original film was missing. In 2002, the Nix family assigned the copyright of the film to the Dallas County Historical Foundation, which operates the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza.
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