Trivia

Was to name his child after Spencer Tracy, but when the baby turned out to be a girl, he named her after Katharine Hepburn. Hepburn was also her godmother.

Directed 14 different actors in Oscar-nominated performances: Tony Curtis, Sidney Poitier, Theodore Bikel, Cara Williams, Spencer Tracy, Maximilian Schell, Judy Garland, Montgomery Clift, Oskar Werner, Michael Dunn, Simone Signoret, Katharine Hepburn, Cecil Kellaway and Beah Richards. Hepburn and Schell won Oscars for their performances in one of Kramer's movies.

After his retirement in 1980, he moved to Seattle, where he wrote a column for the Seattle Times and taught at the University of Washington and Bellevue Community College.

Produced six Best Picture Oscar nominees: 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).

Served in the Army Signal Corps during World War II, making training films. He finished the war with the rank of first lieutenant.

After graduating from New York University in 1933, majoring in writing, Kramer accepted an internship in Hollywood as a production assistant. He worked as a set p.a. at several studios from 1933 onward and eventually worked at Universal in the early 1940s as part of the swing gang in the art department.

His mother worked as a secretary for Paramount. One of his uncles worked in distribution for Universal.

His films Home of the Brave (1949) and Champion (1949) were the only two major box office hits United Artists had in 1949.

Has a street in Berwick, Australia where part of On the Beach (1959) was filmed, named in his honour - Kramer Drive.

After graduating De Witt Clinton High School, he attended New York University, graduating with a degree in business administration. His articles for a university publication won him a contract as junior writer at 20th Century Fox, earning $70 a week. For the next fourteen years, he worked as a scriptwriter/researcher at Fox, Republic and Columbia; as set dresser, researcher and editor at MGM and as associate producer for Loew-Lewin. Formed his own production company in 1947, in conjunction with Carl Foreman and George Glass. Under contract as director at United Artists (1955-63) and Columbia (1965-67; 1970-73). Had a reputation for being frugal, working well within his budgetary limitations. Many of his films reflected social or political concerns and were often controversial. He was consequently -- and to his chagrin -- tagged as a "message film maker" and "Hollywood's Conscience".

NYU, Kramer's alma mater, awarded him its prestigious Gallatin Medal in 1968. The award honors persons whose accomplishments are of "lasting significance to society." Three of its previous eleven recipients were Dr. Jonas Salk, Ralph Bunche, and C. Douglas Dillon.

Father of Casey Kramer and Larry Kramer (with Anne P. Kramer) and Kat Kramer and Jennifer Kramer (with Karen Sharpe.

An avid Yankees fan, he could name players on every team over the decades. In fact, he named his first daughter, actress Casey Kramer, after player/manager, Casey Stengel.

He has produced four films that have been selected for the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically" significant: Cyrano de Bergerac (1950), High Noon (1952), Judgment at Nuremberg (1961) and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967). He has also directed two films that are in the registry: Judgment at Nuremberg and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner.

He died of complications from pneumonia at the Motion Picture Home, in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles.

Biography in: John Wakeman, editor. "World Film Directors, Volume Two, 1945-1985". Pages 538-544. New York: The H.W. Wilson Company, 1988.

Received a Lifetime Achievement award from the Santa Clarita International Film Festival in the late 1990's.