Leopold Godowsky, Jr. and Leopold Mannes, affectionately known by colleagues and friends as "God and Man" were professional musicians who performed together as violinist and pianist and who enjoyed photography as a hobby. Leopold, Jr. also performed as soloist with others and as first violinist of the San Francisco and the Los Angeles Symphonies. He also enrolled at the UCLA to study physics and chemistry.

In 1916 the friends started experimenting with color images by taking multiple black-and-white exposures through filters of various colors. For 14 years they worked in their families' kitchens and bathrooms, often in total darkness and measured the developing times of film by whistling the last movement of Brahms' 1st Symphony at a metronomic pace of two beats per second. Their passionate interest in developing their innovative color process led to their improving the ease and quality of color film production making it possible for color film to become a commercial success as Kodachrome® film in 1936.

Godowsky continued research work into the 1950s improving the color process for Kodak in his own laboratory in Westport, Connecticut. However, he considered music, especially playing chamber music - often with the most illustrious musicians of his time (like Heifetz, Primrose, Feuermann, and Piatigorsky) - his greatest passion in life.

Matthias Baldwin
C. Donald Bateman
Clarence Birdseye
Leopold Godowsky, Jr.
Robert Gundlach
Alec Jeffreys
Dean Kamen
Leopold Mannes
Garrett Augustus Morgan
Les Paul
Jacob Rabinow
Glenn T. Seaborg
Leo Henryk Sternbach
Selman Waksman