Fred Murphy

• Birthplace: New York, New York

Native New Yorker Fred Murphy's first credits as a director of photography came on low-budget films helmed by females: Martha Coolidge's "Not a Pretty Picture" (1975), Claudia Weill's "Girlfriends" (1978) and Lee Grant's "Tell Me a Riddle" (1980). In each case, he provided clean camerawork that did not detract from the inherent drama. He acquired his first real cachet in the industry, however, working with cinematographer-turned-director Richard Pearce on "Heartland" (1980), an unromanticized portrait of frontier life in 1910 Wyoming. Murphy's …more