Kramer Morgenthau, A.S.C. (born June 6, 1966), is an American cinematographer and a member of both the Morgenthau and the Lehman family.
Morgenthau was raised in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
His father, Henry Morgenthau III, was a producer of documentaries for the flagship PBS station, WGBH-TV, in Boston and his mother, Ruth (née Schachter), was a Polish Jewish refugee from WWII Vienna; was a professor of international politics at Brandeis University; served as an advisor to Presidents John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Jimmy Carter on Africa; and in 1988 ran unsuccessfully as a Democratic candidate for Congress in Rhode Island. He has one brother, Henry "Ben" Morgenthau and one sister, Sarah Elinor Morgenthau Wessel.
His great-great-grandfather was businessman Mayer Lehman. His grandfather was Henry Morgenthau Jr., the U.S. Treasury secretary during the Roosevelt administration. His great-grandfather, Henry Morgenthau Sr., was the ambassador to the Ottoman Empire during World War I; his uncle is Robert M. Morgenthau, Manhattan district attorney for 35 years.
His early career began in New York as a documentary filmmaker, which led him to shoot Allan Miller's Academy Award-nominated film, Small Wonders, as well as Sundance Festival feature film, Joe & Joe, which began his years as a festival fixture, shooting seven more features and documentaries that played there.
Morgenthau 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, he married Tracy Fleischman in a Jewish ceremony at the former Cathedral of Saint Vibiana in Los Angeles.
He currently lives in Los Angeles, California with his wife and twin children.
TV movies
Film