Celebrity Deathwatch: Stanley Kramer, Director, 87

["Deathwatch Central" <cdw@slick.org>]

http://www.cnn.com/2001/SHOWBIZ/Movies/02/20/obit.kramer.02.ap/index.html

Celebrated director Stanley Kramer dies

February 20, 2001
Web posted at: 2:43 AM EST (0743 GMT)

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Stanley Kramer, producer and director of some of
Hollywood's most celebrated "message" films including "High Noon," "The
Defiant Ones" and "Judgment at Nuremberg," has died. He was 87.

Kramer, who had been ill with pneumonia, died Monday at the Motion Picture &
Television Hospital in Woodland Hills, said his wife, actress Karen Sharpe
Kramer.

"This morning he seemed to be doing very well," she said Monday night. "I
was getting dressed and coming out to see him. I said, 'I'll be there in an
hour and a half,' and he said, 'Fine, I'll just take a nap, then.' And 20
minutes later he was gone."

Kramer's films drew 80 Oscar nominations and 16 victories, including those
for Gary Cooper ("High Noon"), Maximilian Schell ("Judgment at Nuremberg")
and Katharine Hepburn ("Guess Who's Coming to Dinner").

As producer or producer-director, he was responsible for films dealing with
race ("The Defiant Ones," "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner"), Nazi war crimes
("Judgment at Nuremberg"), fundamentalism vs. modern science ("Inherit the
Wind"), nuclear holocaust ("On the Beach") and counterculture ("The Wild
Ones," "RPM").

The famous showdown of "High Noon" showed a man of courage standing up to
evil while others in his community cowered in the shadows. Kramer's wife of
35 years said such behavior was typical of her husband.

"What epitomized Stanley Kramer as a man and a father and as a filmmaker was
that line from 'Judgment at Nuremberg,' which is, 'Let it be known that this
is what we believe: In truth, in justice and the value of a single human
being," his wife said.

'I am drawn to these subjects'
Kramer himself said he didn't want to be typecast as a "message director."
Asked once why he took on such films, he replied, "I suppose the best answer
is that emotionally I am drawn to these subjects."

But as for changing the world, he said, "If two people came out of a theater
in Kansas City, Missouri, and one said, 'You know, I never thought of it
that way before,' that would satisfy me."

While none of his films won the Oscar for best picture, several were
nominated: "High Noon," "The Caine Mutiny," "The Defiant Ones," "Judgment at
Nuremberg," "Ship of Fools" and "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner."

Kramer was nominated as best director three times, and in 1962 he was
presented with a special Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award for doing
consistently high-quality work.

"Stanley Kramer is 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," director Steven Spielberg once said.

New York Times critic Bosley Crowther wrote that not all his more than 30
films were works of art, but that in his career he had compiled "an
excellent record of forceful films on vital themes."

'He made a difference,' Peck says
"For 30 years he was the conscience of Hollywood," Mark Rydell, director of
"On Golden Pond," once said.

"He was a serious director," Gregory Peck, who starred in "On the Beach,"
once said. "He kept trying. Sometimes he failed, but now and then he hit,
and he made a difference."

Kramer put his ideals to work behind the screen, too, hiring blacklisted
writers such as Ned Young, who used the pseudonym Nathan E. Douglas and won
an Oscar for his work on "The Defiant Ones" and a nomination for "Inherit
the Wind."

Not all of Kramer's subject matter was heavy, however.

In "It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World" he made a rare foray into comedy -- on a
grand scale.

The 1963 film about a madcap race for buried treasure ran more than three
hours, and the cast included such comic heavyweights as Milton Berle, Sid
Caesar, Phil Silvers, Buster Keaton, Ethel Merman, Mickey Rooney,
Terry-Thomas, Buddy Hackett, Jimmy Durante, Joe E. Brown, Zasu Pitts and
Jonathan Winters.

Kramer called it "the happiest experience I had with a film."

Critics sometimes felt the idealism and sheer length of Kramer's films got
in the way of art, and in the late '60s, as a younger generation became
dominant in Hollywood, the days of the large-scale musicals and message
films waned.

Kramer's final film, "The Runner Stumbles," was released in 1979.

The New York City native got into film in the mid-1930s as a researcher,
editor and writer. After military service in World War II, he formed an
independent production company.

In the early '50s, he produced several films based on famous plays,
including "Death of a Salesman" and "The Member of the Wedding." For part of
the decade, he was associated with Columbia Pictures. His first film as both
producer and director was "Not as a Stranger," 1955.

Copyright 2001 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may
not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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