Stanley Kramer

Stanley Kramer

Stanley Earl Kramer (September 29, 1913 – February 19, 2001) was an American film director and producer, responsible for making many of Hollywood's most famous "message movies", and becoming one of the nation's most respected filmmakers. As an independent producer and director, he distinguished himself and his films by bringing attention to topical social issues that most studios avoided. Among the subjects covered in his films were racism, nuclear war, greed, creationism vs. evolution and the causes and effects of fascism.

Despite the controversial subjects of his films, many of which received mixed reviews, the film industry nonetheless recognized their importance and quality during most of his career, awarding his films sixteen Academy Awards and eighty nominations. He was nominated nine times as either producer or director.

His notable films include High Noon (1952, as producer), The Defiant Ones (1958), On the Beach (1959), Inherit the Wind (1960), Judgment at Nuremberg (1961), It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963), Ship of Fools (1965) and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967). After a string of unsuccessful productions in the 1970s, he retired from films.

Director Steven Spielberg described him as an "incredibly talented visionary," and "one of our great filmmakers, not just for the art and passion he put on screen, but for the impact he has made on the conscience of the world." Kramer was recognized for his fierce independence as a producer-director, with author Victor Navasky writing that "among the independents . . . none seemed more vocal, more liberal, more pugnacious than young Stanley Kramer." Kramer agreed: "I tried to make movies that lasted about issues that would not go away."

In 1961 he received the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award. In 1963 he was a member of the jury at the 3rd Moscow International Film Festival. In 1998 was awarded the first NAACP Vanguard Award "in recognition of the strong social themes that ran through his body of work." In 2002, the Stanley Kramer Award was created, to be given to recipients for work that "dramatically illustrates provocative social issues."