Steven Allan Spielberg (born December 18, 1946)[1] is an American film director A film director is a person who directs the making or production of a film. Many people also consider film producers, cinematographers, film editors, and special effects experts to be filmmakers, screenwriter Screenwriters or scenarists or scriptwriters are people in a film crew who write/create the screenplays from which films and television programs are made, and film producer A film producer or movie producer is someone who selects a screenplay, initiating the process of film making. The title Executive Producer is normally reserved for a producer with a financial interest in the production. The producer oversees the whole process including co-coordinating, supervising and controlling matters such as fund-raising,. In a career spanning six decades, Spielberg's films have taken up many themes and genres. Spielberg's early science-fiction Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with the impact of imagined innovations in science or technology, often in a futuristic setting. It differs from fantasy in that, within the context of the story, its imaginary elements are largely possible within scientifically established or scientifically postulated laws of nature . Exploring the and adventure films The adventure film reached its peak of popularity in 1930s and 1940s Hollywood, when films such as Captain Blood, The Adventures of Robin Hood and The Mark of Zorro were regularly made with major stars, notably Errol Flynn and Tyrone Power, who were closely associated with the genre. At the same time, Saturday morning serials were often using many were seen as an archetype of modern Hollywood Hollywood is a neighborhood in Los Angeles, California - situated west-northwest of Downtown Los Angeles. Due to its fame and cultural identity as the historical center of movie studios and movie stars, the word "Hollywood" is often used as a metonym of American cinema, and is often interchangeably used to refer to the greater Los blockbuster Blockbuster, as applied to film or theatre, denotes a very popular and/or successful production. The entertainment industry use was originally theatrical slang referring to a particularly successful play but is now used primarily by the film industry filmmaking. In later years, his films began addressing such issues as the Holocaust The Holocaust , also known as the Shoah (Hebrew): השואה,[citation needed] Romanized ha'shoah; Yiddish: חורבן, Romanized churben or hurban is the term generally used to describe the genocide of approximately six million European Jews during World War II, a programme of systematic state-sponsored extermination by Nazi Germany, slavery Slavery is a system in which people are the property of others. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand wages. In some societies it was legal for an owner to kill a slave. In others it was a crime to kill a slave, war War is a behaviour pattern exhibited by many primate species including humans, and also found in many ant species. The primary feature of this behaviour pattern is a certain state of organized violent conflict that is engaged in between two or more separate social entities. Such a conflict is always an attempt at altering either the psychological and terrorism Terrorism is the systematic use of terror especially as a means of coercion. At present, the International community has been unable to formulate a universally agreed, legally binding, criminal law definition of terrorism. Common definitions of terrorism refer only to those violent acts which are intended to create fear , are perpetrated for a.
Spielberg won the Academy Award for Best Director The Academy Award for Achievement in Directing is one of the Awards of Merit presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) to directors working in the motion picture industry. While nominations for Best Director are made by members in the Academy's Directing branch, the award winners are selected by the Academy membership as for Schindler's List Schindler's List is an epic 1993 American war-drama film about Oskar Schindler, a German businessman who saved the lives of more than a thousand Polish Jewish refugees during the Holocaust by employing them in his factories. The film was directed by Steven Spielberg and based on the novel Schindler's Ark by Thomas Keneally. It stars Liam Neeson as (1993) and Saving Private Ryan Saving Private Ryan is a 1998 American war film set during the invasion of Normandy in World War II. It was directed by Steven Spielberg and written by Robert Rodat. The film is notable for the intensity of its opening 27 minutes, which depict the Omaha beachhead assault of June 6, 1944. Afterward, it follows Tom Hanks as Captain John H. Miller (1998). Three of Spielberg's films - Jaws Jaws is a 1975 American film directed by Steven Spielberg and based on Peter Benchley's novel of the same name. The police chief of Amity Island, a fictional summer resort town, tries to protect beachgoers from a giant great white shark by closing the beach, only to be overruled by the town council, which wants the beach to remain open to draw a (1975), E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial is a 1982 American science fiction film co-produced and directed by Steven Spielberg, written by Melissa Mathison and starring Henry Thomas, Robert MacNaughton, Drew Barrymore, and Dee Wallace. It tells the story of Elliott , a lonely boy who befriends a friendly extraterrestrial, dubbed "E.T.", who is stranded (1982), and Jurassic Park Jurassic Park is a 1993 American science fiction-adventure film directed by Steven Spielberg and based on the novel of the same name by Michael Crichton. The film centers on the fictional island of Isla Nublar, where scientists have created an amusement park of cloned dinosaurs. John Hammond invites a group of scientists, played by Sam Neill, Jeff (1993) - achieved box office 2009 has the most films on the list with seven, next stands 2007 with six. Eighty percent of the films in the top 50 were released after 2000, while no film prior to 1977 appears in the list because ticket-price inflation, population size and ticket purchasing trends are not considered. A North-America-only ticket price inflation-adjusted list can records, each becoming the highest-grossing film made at the time. To date, the unadjusted gross of all Spielberg-directed films exceeds $8.5 billion worldwide. Forbes Forbes, Inc. is a privately held publishing and media company. Its flagship publication is Forbes, a bi-weekly magazine, with a circulation over 900,000. In August 2006, the private equity firm, Elevation Partners, became a minority shareholder in a newly formed company, Forbes Media, which encompasses Forbes magazine and Forbes.com, one of the puts Spielberg's wealth at $3.0 billion.
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Early life
Spielberg was born in Cincinnati Cincinnati is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. The municipality is located north of the Ohio River at the Ohio-Kentucky border. The population within city limits was estimated to be 333,200 in 2009, making it the state's third-largest city. According to a 2008 Census Bureau estimate, the Cincinnati, Ohio, to a Jewish The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation. Converts to Judaism, whose status as Jews within the Jewish ethnos family. His mother Leah Adler was a restaurateur and concert pianist A pianist (pronounced /ˈpiː.ənɨst/ is a musician who plays the piano. A professional pianist can perform solo pieces, play with an ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers, solo instrumentalists, or other performers, and father Arnold Spielberg was an electrical engineer involved in the development of computers.[2] He spent his childhood in Haddon Heights, New Jersey Haddon Heights is a Borough in Camden County, New Jersey, United States. As of the United States 2000 Census, the borough population was 7,547 and Scottsdale, Arizona Scottsdale is a city in the eastern part of Maricopa County, Arizona, United States, adjacent to Phoenix. As of 2010 the population of the city was 245,500. Scottsdale is regarded as an upscale tourist and shopping destination and as a representation of western American style. The New York Times described downtown Scottsdale as "a desert, an upscale suburb of Phoenix Phoenix is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Arizona, as well as the fifth most populated city in the United States. Phoenix is home to approximately 1.5 million people, and is the anchor of the Phoenix metropolitan area (also known as the Valley of the Sun), the 12th largest metro area by population in the United States with. Throughout his early teens, Spielberg made amateur 8 mm "adventure" films with his friends, the first of which he shot at the Pinnacle Peak Patio restaurant in Scottsdale. He charged admission (25 cents) to his home films (which involved the wrecks he staged with his Lionel train set) while his sister sold popcorn.
In 1958, he became a Boy Scout Boy Scouting is a membership level of the Boy Scouts of America for boys and young men. It provides effective youth training in character, citizenship, and mental and personal fitness. Boy Scouts are expected to develop personal religious values, learn the principles of American heritage and government, and acquire skills to become successful and fulfilled a requirement for the photography merit badge by making a nine-minute 8 mm film entitled The Last Gunfight.[3] Spielberg recalled years later to a magazine interviewer, "My dad's still-camera was broken, so I asked the scoutmaster if I could tell a story with my father's movie camera The movie camera is a type of photographic camera which takes a rapid sequence of photographs on strips of film. In contrast to a still camera, which captures a single snapshot at a time, . the movie camera takes a series of images; "frame". This is accomplished through an intermittent mechanism. The frames are later played back in a. He said yes, and I got an idea to do a Western. I made it and got my merit badge. That was how it all started."[4] At age 13, Spielberg won a prize for a 40-minute war film he titled, Escape to Nowhere. In 1963, at age 16, Spielberg wrote and directed his first independent film, a 140-minute science fiction Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with the impact of imagined innovations in science or technology, often in a futuristic setting. It differs from fantasy in that, within the context of the story, its imaginary elements are largely possible within scientifically established or scientifically postulated laws of nature . Exploring the adventure called Firelight Firelight is a 1964 science fiction adventure film. It was written by Steven Spielberg at the age of 16 and he directed it on a budget of $500. The film was his first commercial success, was shown at a local cinema and generated a profit of $1. "I counted the receipts that night [...] and we charged a dollar a ticket. Five hundred people came (which would later inspire Close Encounters). The film, which had a budget of US$500, was shown in his local cinema theatre Most movie theaters are commercial operations catering to the general public, who attend by purchasing a ticket. The movie is projected with a movie projector onto a large projection screen at the front of the auditorium. Some movie theaters are now equipped for digital cinema projection, removing the need to create and transport a physical film and generated a profit of $1.00.[citation needed] He also made several WWII films inspired by his father's war stories.
After his parents divorced, he moved to Saratoga, California California's geography ranges from the Pacific coast to the Sierra Nevada mountain range in the east, to Mojave desert areas in the southeast and the Redwood–Douglas fir forests of the northwest. The center of the state is dominated by the Central Valley, one of the most productive agricultural areas in the world. California is the most with his father. His three sisters and mother remained in Arizona, where he attended Passover Seders The Passover Seder is a Jewish ritual feast that marks the beginning of the Jewish holiday of Passover. It is held on the evening of the 14th day of Nisan in the Hebrew calendar, which corresponds to late March or April in the Gregorian calendar. The Seder is a ritual performed by a community or by multiple generations of a family, involving a at the home of Zalman and Pearl Segal on an annual basis.[citation needed] Although he attended Arcadia High School Arcadia High School is a public high school located in Phoenix, Arizona. The school enrolls 1,380 who primarily come from feeder schools in the Scottsdale Unified School District. Arcadia began a significant renovation in the summer of 2005 in Phoenix, Arizona for three years, Spielberg ended up graduating from Saratoga High School in Saratoga, California in 1965. It was during this time Spielberg attained the rank of Eagle Scout Eagle Scout is the highest rank attainable in the Boy Scouting program of the Boy Scouts of America . A Scout who attains this rank is called an Eagle Scout or Eagle. Since its introduction in 1911, the Eagle Scout rank has been earned by more than 2 million young men. The title of Eagle Scout is held for life, thus giving rise to the phrase ".
Spielberg attended synagogue as a young boy in Haddon Heights, NJ, an area which did not allow Jews before World War II. He attended Hebrew school from 1953 to 1957, in classes taught by Rabbi Albert L. Lewis,[5] who would later be memorialized as the main character in Mitch Albom's, Have a Little Faith.
As a child, Spielberg had a hard time accepting his family's religion. “It isn’t something I enjoy admitting,” he once said, “but when I was 7, 8, 9 years old, God forgive me, I was embarrassed because we were Orthodox Jews. I was embarrassed by the outward perception of my parents’ Jewish practices. ... I was never really ashamed to be Jewish, but I was uneasy at times. My grandfather always wore a long black coat, black hat and long white beard. I was embarrassed to invite my friends over to the house, because he might be in a corner davening [praying], and I wouldn’t know how to explain this to my WASP friends.”[6]
Spielberg also suffered from acts of anti-Semitic Antisemitism is prejudice against or hostility towards Jews, often rooted in hatred of their ethnic background, culture, and/or religion. In its extreme form, it "attributes to the Jews an exceptional position among all other civilizations, defames them as an inferior group and denies their being part of the nation[s]" in which they prejudice in his early life. He later said, "In high school, I got smacked and kicked around. Two bloody noses. It was horrible."[7]
After moving to California, he applied to attend the film school at University of Southern California The University of Southern California is a private, nonsectarian, research university located in the University Park neighborhood in Los Angeles, California, USA. USC was founded in 1880, making it California's oldest private research university School of Theater, Film and Television three separate times, but was unsuccessful. He was a student subsequently of California State University, Long Beach California State University, Long Beach is the second largest campus of the California State University system and the third largest university in the state of California by enrollment. The University is located at the southeastern coastal tip of Los Angeles County, less than a mile from the border with Orange County. While attending Long Beach State in the 1960s, Spielberg became member of Theta Chi Fraternity. His actual career began when he returned to Universal Studios as an unpaid, seven-day-a-week intern and guest of the editing department. After Spielberg became famous, USC awarded him an honorary degree in 1994, and in 1996 he became a trustee Trustee is a legal term for a holder of property on behalf of a beneficiary. A trust can be set up either to benefit particular persons, or for any charitable purposes : typical examples are a will trust for the testator's children and family, a pension trust (to confer benefits on employees and their families), and a charitable trust. In all of the university.[8][9] In 2002, thirty-five years after starting college, Spielberg finished his degree via independent projects at CSULB, and was awarded a B.A. in Film Production and Electronic Arts with an option in Film/Video Production.[9]
As an intern and guest of Universal Studios, Spielberg made his first short film for theatrical release, the 24 minute film Amblin' Amblin' is a short film released in 1968. It is the first completed film shot by Steven Spielberg on 35mm. The film is a short love story set during the hippie era of the late '60s, about a young couple making their way through the desert to a paradisical beach. The film is silent but is accompanied by an acoustic guitar-led soundtrack from (1968),[2] the title of which Spielberg later took as the name of his production company, Amblin Entertainment Amblin Entertainment is an American film and television production company founded by director, Steven Spielberg, and film producers Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall in 1981. Amblin is only a production company, and has never distributed its own movies, nor has it fully financed its productions, needing the help of the studios that distributed. After Sidney Sheinberg, then the vice-president of production for Universal's TV arm, saw the film, Spielberg became the youngest director ever to be signed for a long-term deal with a major Hollywood studio (Universal). He dropped out of Long Beach State in 1969 to take up the television director contract at Universal Studios and began his career as a professional director.[citation needed] In 1969, Variety Variety is a weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the Daily Variety Gotham edition, based in New York City was announced that Spielberg would direct his first full length film, Malcolm Winkler, written by Claudia Salter, produced by John Orland, with Frank Price being the executive producer. However, because of the difficulty in casting the key male role, the film was not made.
Career
Early career (1968–1975)
His first professional TV job came when he was hired to do one of the segments for the 1969 pilot episode of Night Gallery Night Gallery is Rod Serling’s follow-up series to The Twilight Zone that aired on NBC from 1970 to 1973. Serling functioned both as the on-air host of Night Gallery and as a major contributor of scripts, although he did not have the same control of content and tone as he did on The Twilight Zone. The segment, "Eyes," starred Joan Crawford Joan Crawford , born Lucille Fay LeSueur, was an American actress in film, television and theatre. Starting as a dancer in traveling theatrical companies before debuting on Broadway, Crawford was signed to a motion picture contract by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1925. Initially frustrated by the size and quality of her parts, Crawford began a campaign , and she and Spielberg were reportedly close friends until her death. The episode is unusual in his body of work, in that the camerawork is more highly stylized than his later, more "mature" films. After this, and an episode of Marcus Welby, M.D. Marcus Welby, M.D. is a medical drama that aired on ABC from September 23, 1969 to July 29, 1976. It starred Robert Young as the title character, a family practitioner with a kind bedside manner, and was produced by David Victor and David J. O'Connell. The pilot aired as an ABC Movie of the Week on March 26, 1969, Spielberg got his first feature-length assignment: an episode of The Name of the Game called "L.A. 2017." This futuristic science fiction episode impressed Universal Studios and they signed him to a short contract. He did another segment on Night Gallery and did some work for shows such as Owen Marshall: Counselor at Law and The Psychiatrist before landing the first series episode of Columbo Columbo is an American crime fiction TV series, starring Peter Falk as Lieutenant Columbo, a homicide detective with the Los Angeles Police Department. The show popularized the inverted detective story format. With the exception of a couple of special episodes with added twists, almost every episode began by showing the commission of the crime and (previous episodes were actually TV films).
Based on the strength of his work, Universal signed Spielberg to do four TV films. The first was a Richard Matheson Richard Burton Matheson is an American author and screenwriter, primarily in the fantasy, horror, and science fiction genres. He is perhaps best known as the author of What Dreams May Come, Somewhere In Time, Duel, and I Am Legend, all four of which have been adapted as major motion pictures. Matheston has also written for several The Twilight adaptation called Duel Duel is a 1971 television movie about a motorist on a remote and lonely road being stalked by a large tanker truck and its almost unseen driver. It was the first feature film directed by Steven Spielberg and was written by Richard Matheson based on his own short story about a monstrous tanker truck which tries to run a small car off the road. Special praise of this film by the influential British critic Dilys Powell She was born into a middle class family in Bridgnorth, Shropshire. Her mother was Mary Jane Lloyd; her father, Thomas Powell, a bank manager. She went to Talbot Heath School in Bournemouth and afterwards obtained a first class honours degree in modern languages at Somerville College, Oxford. While at Oxford she met an archaeologist, Humfry Payne, was highly significant to Spielberg's career. Another TV film (Something Evil) was made and released to capitalize on the popularity of The Exorcist The Exorcist is a 1973 American horror film directed by William Friedkin, adapted from the 1971 novel of the same name by William Peter Blatty, dealing with the demonic possession of a young girl and her mother’s desperate attempts to win back her daughter through an exorcism conducted by two priests. The film features Ellen Burstyn, Linda Blair,, then a major best-selling book which had not yet been released as a film. He fulfilled his contract by directing the TV film length pilot of a show called Savage, starring Martin Landau Martin Landau is an American film and television actor. He is perhaps best known for his roles in the television series Mission: Impossible (1966–1969) and Space: 1999 (1975–1977). He received a Golden Globe Award in 1969 for his performance in the former, playing the role of mission specialist Rollin Hand. In 1968 and 1969 he received Emmy. Spielberg's debut theatrical feature film was The Sugarland Express, about a married couple who are chased by police as the couple tries to regain custody of their baby. Spielberg's cinematography for the police chase was praised by reviewers, and The Hollywood Reporter stated that "a major new director is on the horizon."[10] However, the film fared poorly at the box office and received a limited release.
Studio producers Richard Zanuck and David Brown offered Spielberg the director's chair for Jaws, a thriller-horror film based on the Peter Benchley novel about an enormous killer-shark. Spielberg has often referred to the grueling shoot as his professional crucible. Despite the film's ultimate, enormous success, it was nearly shut down due to delays and budget over-runs.
But Spielberg persevered and finished the film. It was an enormous hit, winning three Academy Awards (for editing, original score and sound) and grossing $470,653,000 worldwide at the box office. It also set the domestic record for box office gross, leading to what the press described as "Jawsmania."[11] Jaws made him a household name, as well as one of America's youngest multi-millionaires, and allowed Spielberg a great deal of autonomy for his future projects.[12] It was nominated for Best Picture and featured Spielberg's first of three collaborations with actor Richard Dreyfuss.
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Mon, 16 Aug 2010 14:47:05 GMT+00:00
, Streisand among those hosting Obama's LA fundraiser Los Angeles Times (blog) According to Variety, big Hollywood names are expected: "Among the co-hosts for the event are Steven Spielberg , Jeffrey Katzenberg, Barbra Streisand, ... Obama on cross-country trip to raise money for Democratic candidates Washington Post Obama Finds His Campaign Voice Wall Street Journal (blog) Obama and Hollywood: State of Their Union ABC News Hollywood Today Newsmagazine - TheWrap - Weasel Zippers (blog)
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Megan Fox talks about what happend in THAT picture
Tue, 10 Feb 2009 14:09:14 PST
Steven Spielberg reminisces about being a young movie-goer and seeing the first James Bond film starring Sean Connery. This is his speech at the ... youtube.com.
Sean O'Connell
Fri, 30 Jul 2010 23:42:36 GM
By Sean O'Connell Hollywoodnews.com: This is kind of depressing. Apparently Liam Neeson no longer is attached to . Steven Spielberg's. long-gestating.
