Biography
Philip Richard Gries was born on February 2, 1943, at Jewish Hospital in Brooklyn, New York, to Nathan Gries (b. 1902) and Lillian K. Gries (b. 1905). His paternal and maternal grandparents were Jewish immigrants from Poland and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In March 1947, Phil and his family, now including his younger brother Dr. Leonard Todd Gries (b. 1945), relocated from 716 Jefferson Avenue, Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, to 4105 Bedford Avenue, Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn. Phil attended P.S. 206 for kindergarten, first grade, and sixth grade, and Yeshiva Rambam from second through fifth grade. He continued his education at Shell Bank Junior High School, James Madison High School, Farmingdale State College (earning an Associate Degree in Agronomy), City College of New York (Bachelor’s Degree in Film Production), and the University of California, Los Angeles (Master’s Degree in Fine Arts in Film and Television).
At age 14, Phil’s parents gifted him an 8mm Model 43 Wollensak film camera, sparking a lifelong passion and career in cinematography. His first footage, shot on July 4, 1957, captured the Brooklyn Dodgers playing the Pittsburgh Pirates at Ebbets Field. Over a professional career spanning 45 years, he worked on commercials, feature films, behind-the-scenes projects, adult films (earning the AVN Best Cinematography Award for Firestorm 2: The Angel Blade in 1988), and primarily hundreds of television documentaries.
A year after marrying Jane B. King (b. 1947), Phil began his freelance cinematography career in Los Angeles in the fall of 1970, joining the N.A.B.E.T. cameraman’s union. After screening his 54-minute documentary Harlem School (1970) at the home of his former UCLA instructor, Haskell Wexler, and seeking his feedback, Phil accepted a staff position as cinematographer and editor at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay and WPNE, the local Public Television affiliate, where he worked from 1974 to 1978. He returned to New York in the spring of 1978, where he has lived and worked since with his wife Jane and their son, Ethan Marc (b. 1990).
A major highlight of Phil’s career was his collaboration with the British Broadcasting Corporation, photographing 183 documentary productions over twenty consecutive years. In 1980, he joined the I.A.T.S.E. Local 600 cameramen’s union. In 1997, he was accepted into the Society of Operating Cameramen. Notable documentaries he worked on include the PBS series The World of Ideas with Bill Moyers (1988), the National Emmy Award-nominated PBS Frontline documentary 88 Seconds in Greensboro (1983), the 13-part series Mafia’s Greatest Hits (2012), and the Emmy Award-winning documentary Vermeer: Master of Light (2001).
