Stanley Kramer

Stanley Kramer was an American film director and producer that spent the majority of his career creating films that addressed social problems in America. The issues he tackled were ones that otherwise were not being addressed in mainstream Hollywood, and he is remembered for his fierce independence and drive to make films no one else was willing to make. He was born Stanley Earl Kramer on September 29th, 1913 in New York City, and graduated with a degree in business from NYU in 1933. Following his graduation, he immediately moved to Hollywood and worked entry level jobs through WWII. Following the war, he helped found a production company, Screen Plays Inc., in 1947 and produced his first commercial success, Champion (1949, Dir. Mark Robson,) only two years after. A film noir about a ruthless prizefighter, the film addressed corruption and gambling, which set the tone for Kramer’s socially conscious focused career.

Kramer left Screen Plays and made his own production company that helped produce films made by major studios. He produced the film, The Men (1950, Dir. Fred Zinnemann,) a socially conscious film focused on the challenges faced by disabled war veterans that also launched legendary actor Marlon Brando’s career. He then went on to produce several critically acclaimed films with multiple academy award nominations throughout the 1950s, including High Noon (1952), Death of a Salesman (1951), and the Wild One (1953), another film starring Brando. All of these were commercially and critically successful, with High Noon earning seven academy award nominations, and his great success allowed him to venture out further in his career.

Kramer began directing while maintaining his producer role in the mid 1950s and finished his last film in 1979. Over this 30-year period of Kramer’s life, he produced and directed 16 films, with nearly all of them including a socially conscious message. He started to fall out of popularity in the mid 70s and retired after The Runner Stumbles (1979), after which he went on to teach filmmaking at the University of Washington. All of the works he either produced or directed won 16 Academy Awards and had 80 nominations, and he himself was nominated as either producer or director nine times. While he never won any of those nominations, at the 1963 Academy Awards he was awarded the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award, which is given to outstanding producers, and in 2002, the Producers Guild of America created the Stanley Kramer Award. He died on February 19, 2001 at the age of 87 after contracting pneumonia, and he is remembered for his fierceness as a producer-director and socially conscious messages he passionately championed.