Otto Lang, a West Seattle legend of skiing, movie and TV production, books and photography, died at his Admiral District home Jan. 30 at age 98.

Lang was born in 1908 in Bosnia and grew up near Sarajevo. His mother was Croatian but his father was Austrian. Back then, Bosnia was part of the Hapsburg Empire.

Young Otto and his father attended the 1914 Sarajevo visit of Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand. That was when the archduke was assassinated, the event which touched off World War I.

After the war, the Lang family moved to Salzburg, Austria. That's where young Otto took up skiing and became an instructor.

Lang was recruited in 1935 to move to the United States for a job teaching skiing in New Hampshire. He later came to the Northwest and founded the ski schools at Mount Rainier, Mount Hood, Mount Baker, and helped establish the ski school at Sun Valley, Idaho.

Among Lang's ski students was Darryl F. Zanuck, the famous co-founder of Twentieth Century Pictures. Zanuck produced the first movie with sound, "The Jazz Singer." He later produced "The Grapes of Wrath," "The Longest Day" and "The Sound of Music."

The two men became friends. Lang would watch Zanuck review the raw film shot at Twentieth Century Pictures and sent daily to Zanuck in Sun Valley. Lang learned how to edit film from the famous producer, who soon invited him to Hollywood.

Lang took a job scouting movie locations all over the world. He learned photography skills by taking pictures of the many possible movie locations he discovered. He also learned how to compose photographs by visiting art museums and paying attention to how artists composed their canvasses.

He once won a worldwide photography contest sponsored by the expired literary publication The Saturday Review. He also got two books of his photography published.

Lang became a producer of movies as well as television. He produced the Jimmy Stewart movie "Call Northside 777" as well as "Five Fingers" starring James Mason. He also worked on the Cinerama movies and knew and radio broadcaster and newsreel narrator Lowell Thomas for 50 years.

He directed television programs in the 1950s and '60s including episodes of "The Rifleman," "The Man from U.N.C.L.E.," "Sea Hunt" and "Cheyenne."

Although he never won an Academy Award, Lang was nominated for an Oscar four times.

He even was hired by the legendary sports editor Royal Brougham to write a skiing column for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

No information about funeral arrangements was available.