Career Highlights: The Philadelphia Story, Gigi, Gaslight
First Major Screen Credit: Blue Streak (1917)
Biography
Russian-born cinematographer Joseph Ruttenberg emigrated to the U.S. as a child. Before entering films as a newsreel photographer in the early 1910s, Ruttenberg learned the whys and wherefores of the still camera as a photojournalist. His Hollywood career began when he joined the Fox studios in 1915. His first talkie assignment was The Struggle (1931), D.W. Griffith's final film. Joseph Ruttenberg went on to win four Academy awards, for The Great Waltz (1938), Mrs. Miniver (1942), Somebody up There Likes Me (1956), and Gigi (1958) -- all produced by MGM, Ruttenberg's home base from 1935 through 1968. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Born into a Jewish family in St. Petersburg, Russia, Joseph Ruttenberg was ten years old when his family emigrated to the United States, settling in Boston, Massachusetts. As a young man he went to work at the Boston Globe newspaper as a photojournalist but left in 1915 to accept a job with the Fox Film Corporation in New York City to train as a cinematographer. Two years later he was behind the camera for his first silent film--The Painted Madonna (1917)--in what would be a remarkably successful career.[2]
^Steeman, Albert. Internet Encyclopedia of Cinematographers, "Joseph Ruttenberg page," Rotterdam, The Netherlands, 2007. Last accessed: December 22, 2007.