Kramer Morgenthau

Biography:

Kramer Morgenthau, A.S.C. (born June 6, 1966), is an American cinematographer best known for his work on major television and film projects. A six-time Emmy nominee, he has served as director of photography for acclaimed HBO series such as Game of Thrones, Boardwalk Empire, and Fahrenheit 451. His feature film credits include Thor: The Dark World, Creed II, The Many Saints of Newark, and Respect. Morgenthau is a member of both the prominent Morgenthau and Lehman families.

Born and raised in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Morgenthau is the son of Henry Morgenthau III, a documentary producer for Boston’s PBS station WGBH-TV, and Ruth Schachter Morgenthau, a Polish-Jewish refugee from wartime Vienna who became a professor of international politics at Brandeis University. Ruth also advised Presidents John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Jimmy Carter on African affairs and ran for Congress in Rhode Island in 1988. Kramer has two siblings: Henry “Ben” Morgenthau and Sarah Elinor Morgenthau Wessel.

He comes from a distinguished lineage: his great-great-grandfather was businessman Mayer Lehman; his great-grandfather, Henry Morgenthau Sr., served as U.S. ambassador to the Ottoman Empire during World War I; his grandfather, Henry Morgenthau Jr., was Secretary of the Treasury under President Franklin D. Roosevelt; and his uncle, Robert M. Morgenthau, was Manhattan’s district attorney for 35 years.

Morgenthau began his career in New York as a documentary filmmaker, working on projects such as Allan Miller’s Small Wonders, which was nominated for an Academy Award. He also shot the Sundance feature Joe & Joe, marking the beginning of a long relationship with the festival, where he went on to shoot several additional films and documentaries.

He is an active member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the American Society of Cinematographers, the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, and the International Cinematographers Guild.

In 2011, Morgenthau married Tracy Fleischman in a Jewish ceremony at the former Cathedral of Saint Vibiana in Los Angeles. The couple lives in Los Angeles with their twin children.