Kramer, A. Stanley

Biography

Kramer was born on September 23, 1913 in New York City; attended New York University; in the film industry since the mid-30s as a researcher, film editor, and writer, he worked his way up to the position of associate producer by the early 1940s; following World War II, he formed an independent motion picture company, Screen Plays Incorporated, and produced modest-budget films; in 1951, he brought his company as an autonomous unit under the banner of Columbia Pictures; in 1954 the arrangement was terminated by mutual consent; after 1955, Kramer directed and produced films, including: The Pride and the Passion (1957), On the Beach (1959), It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World (1963); in 1961 he received the Irving G. Thalberg Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; six of Kramer's films as a director or producer earned Academy Award nominations: High Noon (1952), The Caine Mutiny (1954), The Defiant Ones (1958), Judgment at Nuremberg (1961), Ship of Fools (1965), and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967); in 1991 he was honored with the Producers Guild's David O. Selznick Award.