{{Short description|American film director, writer and cinematographer}} {{About|the filmmaker|the video game character|Erica Anderson (character)|the actress|Erika Anderson|the singer-songwriter|Erika M. Anderson}} {{use mdy dates|date=July 2024}} {{Infobox person | name = Erica Anderson | image = Erica Anderson (cinematographer).jpg | alt = | caption = | birth_name = Erika Kellner | birth_date = August 8, 1914 | birth_place = Vienna, Austria | death_date = {{death date and age|1976|09|23|1914|08|08}} | death_place = Great Barrington, Massachusetts, U.S. | other_names = | occupation = Cinematographer, film director, writer | years_active = | known_for = | notable_works = ''Albert Schweitzer'' }} '''Erica Anderson''' (1914–1976) was an American film director, writer, and cinematographer.<ref>{{Cite news |title=Erica Anderson, 62, a Film Maker And Schweitzer Associate, Is Dead |url=http://timesmachine.nytimes.comhttp//timesmachine.content-tagging.us-east-1-01.prd.dvsp.nyt.net/timesmachine/1976/09/25/75558284.html?pdf_redirect=true&site=false |access-date=2024-02-04 |work=The New York Times |language=en}}</ref> She was among the first women working as a professional cameraperson in documentary and industrial films and filmed documentaries of Albert Schweitzer, Grandma Moses, and Henry Moore. Two documentary films on which she served a cinematographer received Academy Award nominations for Best Short Subject (Two-Reel) in 1951, ''Grandma Moses,''<ref>{{Cite web |title=1951 {{!}} Oscars.org {{!}} Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences |url=https://www.oscars.org/oscars/ceremonies/1951 |access-date=2024-02-04 |website=www.oscars.org |date=4 October 2014 |language=en}}</ref> and Best Documentary Feature in 1958, which it won, ''Albert Schweitzer.''<ref>{{Cite web |title=1958 {{!}} Oscars.org {{!}} Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences |url=https://www.oscars.org/oscars/ceremonies/1958 |access-date=2024-02-04 |website=www.oscars.org |date=4 October 2014 |language=en}}</ref>
== Early life and education == Erika Kellner was born in Vienna, Austria, on August 8, 1914, to Eduard and Ilona Rosenberg Kellner.<ref name="WiWH">{{cite book|first=John|last=Haag|editor1-last=Commire|editor1-first=Anne|title=Women in World History: A Biographical Encyclopedia|date=2002|publisher=Yorkin Publications|location=Waterford, Connecticut|isbn=0-7876-4074-3|chapter-url=https://www.encyclopedia.com/women/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/anderson-erica-1914-1976|chapter=Anderson, Erica (1914–1976)}}</ref> While in Vienna, she worked in the studio of Georg Fayer. She was forced to immigrate in 1938, and went to London where she worked in art galleries. She married William Adrian Collier Anderson, a British physician, in 1939, though they divorced in a few years. She moved to the United States in 1940, following her parents and sister.<ref name="OBL">{{cite web |last1=Winklbauer |first1=Andrea |title=Biographie des Monats: Unter Oscar-Verdacht: Die Fotografin und Filmemacherin Erica Anderson |url=https://www.oeaw.ac.at/fileadmin/Institute/INZ/Bio_Archiv/bio_2014_08.htm |website=Österreichisches Biographisches Lexikon |access-date=July 7, 2024 |language=de}}</ref> She studied with the New York school of photography<ref>{{Cite book |last=Aitken |first=Ian |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JdSNAQAAQBAJ&dq=helen+grayson+bryn+mawr&pg=PA1459 |title=Encyclopedia of the Documentary Film 3-Volume Set |date=2013-10-18 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-135-20620-8 |language=en}}</ref> and opened a studio in New York at 11 West 69th Street. She ran the studio until 1965.<ref name="OBL"/>
== Career == Anderson was initially a still photographer, which she practiced in Vienna and New York. According to one scholar, she may have been the first woman to work professionally as a filmmaker and camerawoman in the United States.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Starr |first=Cecile |date=1995-07-01 |title=Distaff Documentarians: Three American Pioneers |url=https://www.documentary.org/feature/distaff-documentarians-three-american-pioneers |access-date=2024-02-04 |website=International Documentary Association |language=en}}</ref> Between 1940 and 1947, Anderson worked in a variety of roles such as researcher, writer, editor, camera operator, and director for United Specialists, Inc., Hartley Films, Creative Images, and others. Some of the films she made during this time included commissions for the Girl Scouts of America, General Dwight Eisenhower's visit to New York, the Duke of Windsor's stay in Washington, DC, and a travelogue of Pennsylvania for the Standard Oil Company.<ref>Cecile Starr, " Forgotten Trailblazer: Erica Anderson" ''Sightlines'' 18 (1/2), Fall/Winter 1984/85, p.15-18.</ref>
From 1947 to 1950, she was a director employed at Falcon Films (along with Jerome Hill).<ref>{{Cite book |last=The Film Daily |url=http://archive.org/details/filmdailyyearboo00film_19 |title=The thirty-third edition of the film daily year book of motion pictures : nineteen fifty-one |date=1951 |publisher=New York : The Film Daily |others=Media History Digital Library}}</ref> Two of the films made during this time, ''Henry Moore'' and ''French Tapestries Visit America'' might have been among the first 16mm color films shot in the US.
Collaborating with artist/filmmaker Jerome Hill, she provided the cinematography for two Academy Award-nominated biographical documentary films. The first, a short about the octogenarian painter Grandma Moses, began, according to Hill, when he saw uncut material she had shot of Moses. As Hill describes it, "Erica had a fine eye for detail, a flair for the whimsical, and a highly developed sense of the drama."<ref>"Jerome Hill--Making a Documentary--Albert Schweitzer," ''Film Culture'' 2(12), 1957, p.10-12.</ref> To shoot ''Albert Schweitzer,'' Anderson spent the winters of 1952-1954 in Lambaréné at the hospital with the famous doctor and humanitarian. the film took five years to complete and won the 1958 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.
''No Man is a Stranger,'' a 29-minute color film documenting the history and treatment of mental disorders in Haiti that Anderson shot and directed, was made available to professional groups by Schering Corporation and in cooperation with the Department of Mental Hygiene of the State of New York and the Republic of Haiti.<ref>"A Schering Film on Mental Illness in Haiti," ''Business Screen Magazine'' 4(23) 1962, p.44.</ref><ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YWlNAQAAMAAJ&dq=no+man+is+a+stranger+film+schering&pg=PA88 |title=Schizophrenia Bulletin |date=1972 |publisher=U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare, Public Health Service, Alcohol, Drug Abuse and Mental Health Administration |pages=88 |language=en}}</ref>
Anderson purchased a property in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, in 1966 and founded the Albert Schweitzer Friendship House as a memorial to Schweitzer, who had died in 1965.<ref name="OBL"/> Anderson died of a heart attack on September 23, 1976, at her Great Barrington home.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Ennis |first1=Thomas W. |title=Erica Anderson, 62, a Film Maker And Schweitzer Associate, Is Dead |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1976/09/25/archives/erica-anderson-62-a-film-maker-and-schweitzer-associate-is-dead.html |work=The New York Times |date=September 25, 1976}}</ref> The Syracuse University Libraries holds the Erica Anderson Collection, which includes documents from the Albert Schweitzer Friendship House.<ref name="OBL"/>
== Filmography == * ''They Need Not Die'' (for the American Red Cross) * ''The Capitol'' (for the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs) * ''Animals in the Service of Man'' (for the American Humane Society) * ''Henry Moore'' (1947) * ''French Tapestries Visit America'' (1948) * ''Grandma Moses'' (1950), photography by * A short on the Salzburg Seminar (195?) * ''A Village is Waiting'', filmed and directed by, for Unitarian Service Committee<ref>''Business Screen Magazine'' 1(24), 1963, p.179.</ref> * ''Albert Schweitzer'' (1957), photography by * ''No Man is a Stranger'' (1958), photographed and directed by * ''The Living Work of Albert Schweitzer'' (1965) * ''Albert Schweitzer; the Power of His Life'' (1974), photography by<ref name="Films">{{Cite book |last1=Library of Congress |url=http://archive.org/details/films1975librrich |title=Films |last2=Library of Congress. Catalog Maintenance Division |date=1953 |publisher=Ann Arbor, Mich : Edwards |others=Prelinger Library}}</ref> * ''For All That Lives: The Words of Albert Schweitzer'' (1974), photography by<ref name="Films"/>
== Publications == * ''The World of Albert Schweitzer.'' NY: Harper and Brothers, 1955. * ''The Schweitzer Album.'' NY: Harper & Row, 1965.
== References == {{reflist}}
== External links == * {{IMDb name|nm0026686}} * [https://library.syracuse.edu/digital/guides/a/anderson_e.htm Erica Anderson Collection] at Syracuse University
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Anderson, Erica}} Category:1914 births Category:1976 deaths Category:American documentary film directors Category:American women film directors Category:Film directors from New York City Category:Film directors from Vienna Category:Austrian cinematographers Category:American women cinematographers Category:American cinematographers