In addition, he won the 1954 Golden Globe Award for his camera work on the film Brigadoon.

Born into a Jewish family in Berdychiv[2][3]Zhytomyr oblast, Ukraine, Joseph Ruttenberg emigrated to the United States, arriving in Boston, Massachusetts on 7 January 1895.

[4] As a young man he went to work at the Boston Globe 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 The Painted Madonna (1917), which marked the start of a remarkably successful career.

In 1934, Ruttenberg signed with MGM, moving to Hollywood where he was invited to join the American Society of Cinematographers.