Student Biography of Steven
Spielberg
by: Brittany G. -- Wheeling
Park High School -- Sara Hoffman, Teacher
Born in Cincinnati on December
18, 1946, Steven Spielberg was the child to a Jewish family of an engineer
father, Arnold, and a concert pianist mother, Leah. He was raised in the suburbs
of Haddonfield, New Jersey and shortly after moved to Scottsdale, Arizona. He
was a child of four, with three sisters, Anne, Sue, and Nancy. All of them
seemed to have picked up the best elements from both of their parents. Anne,
too, worked in Hollywood. Spielberg made home videos as a child, and completed
his first film with a story and actors at the age of 12 in Phoenix, Arizona. At
13, he won a film contest for his 40-minute film Firelight.
Despite his early success, he was unable to get into a film school, and instead
settled for majoring in English Literature at California State University in
Long Beach. In 1969, his first professional work was the 22-minute long Amblin,
which was shown at the Atlanta Film Festival, and led to his becoming the
youngest director ever to be signed to a long-term deal with a major Hollywood
studio at the age of 20.
Previously
married to actress Amy Irving and together they had a son named Max, Spielberg
met actress Kate Capshaw when she was auditioning for Indian
Jones and the Temple of Doom. Not only would she be cast, but also the two
would begin a relationship and eventually marry in 1991. They both brought one
child from a previous marriage to the relationship, and altogether they
currently have seven children, two of which are adopted. Also, actress Drew
Barrymore is Steven's goddaughter.
Spielberg's
career began in the late sixties when he broke off from a tour at a major
Hollywood studio and began wandering the lot. He was approached by an executive
who was so impressed by his passion to be a filmmaker that he promised to find
him work. Spielberg's television success was soon parlayed into big screen
stardom. His first feature was 1947's The
Sugarland Express, and even then Spielberg was showing signs of excellence,
even though this film went relatively unnoticed. The following year came Jaws. This very successful horror film about a man-eating shark
captured the attention of the world and has become a part of contemporary pop
culture. Jaws was not the only film of
his to make that prestigious list. Many of Spielberg's works have a place on the
list, and many of them also occupy a large place in the heart American pop
culture. He directed the suspense-film Duel
that garnered both critical and audience attention. He also made Close
Encounters of the Third Kind in 1977 and it proved to have a massive
audience. He made a preferably forgettable comedy in 1979 before directing the
first of three Indiana Jones films, Raiders
of the Last Ark, in 1980.He
hit a career high in 1982 when Poltergeist and the phenomenally successful E.T.
were released simultaneously. The films showed two sides of Spielberg. One was a
veritable fright-fest about ghosts besieging a family home; the other was a
bittersweet fantasy about a young boy who befriends a friendly alien. Spielberg
directed a segment of The Twilight Zone
series. After this he directed another Indiana Jones adventure. He then adopted
two novels for the screen, Alice Walker's The
Color Purple and J.G. Ballard's Empire
of the Sun. Both of which were planned by critics who accused him of turning
two dark novels into two light-hearted, decidedly Spielbergian fairy stories.Spielberg made the final Indiana Jones film before remaking his favorite
film, A Guy Named Joe, as Always.
Then he made Hook, a modern-day twist
on the Peter Pan tale. But it wasn't until Jurassic
Park that he was acclaimed with having another winner on his hands. It
triumphed at the box office and became a worldwide obsession. Spielberg has
directed, produced, or executive produced eight of the top grossing films of all
time. He had back-to-back blockbuster hits with The Lost World: Jurassic Park, which he directed, and
Men in Black, which he executive produced. The original Jurassic
Park still ranks worldwide as the highest grossing film of all time. His
additional film credits include the successful Raiders
of the Lost Ark sequels Indiana Jones
and the Temple of Doom and Indiana
Jones and the Last Crusade, Hook
and Always. In 1998, Spielberg came
out with Saving Private Ryan, which
captured war in shocking and gory detail as his soldiers stormed the beaches of
Normandy. Yet again he has shown a propensity to deal with larger, more serious
issues. In 1993, Spielberg made Schindler's
List, a haunting epic that showed the Holocaust in its ugly truth. The film
would finally win Steven a Best Picture Oscar, and rightly so.
Spielberg
formed his own company, Amblin Entertainment, in 1984. The first film to be
produced by Amblin was E.T., and the
company would use E.T.'s logo as its
trademark. The company was a production studio, but it never distributed its own
movie. Instead it relied on other studios for distribution. Amblin Entertainment
was successful, but Spielberg wanted more control over his projects and did not
want any other studios interfering with his work. In 1994, he formed a
partnership with several other industry bigwigs. Together, they created the
first new movie studio in Hollywood in over 75 years called DreamWorks. The
company covers all of its bases and produces live action and animated movies,
music, computer games, arcades, television productions and distribution.
Spielberg owns 22 percent of it all. All together, Spielberg is worth
approximately one billion dollars, and brings home a yearly salary of 238
million dollars. In 1994, Spielberg won two Academy Awards for Best Director and
Best Picture for the internationally lauded Schindler's
List, which received a total of seven Oscars. The film also collected Best
Picture honors from the major critics organizations, in addition to seven
British Academy Awards, including two for Spielberg. In addition, he earned
Director's Guild of America Award form the American Film Institute in 1995, and
the prestigious Irving G. Thalberg Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts
and Sciences in 1987. He also won the Golden Globe Award and was honored by his
peers with his second Directors Guild of America Award, the first having come
for The Color Purple.
It's
hard to imagine a person who has not heard of Steven Spielberg; they obviously
don't get out much. He is one of the most renown (if not THE most renown)
American filmmaker of this century. His films have captivated and helped develop
the imaginations of contemporary society and remain amongst the most successful
films ever made. This talented young man was also the premiere movie director of
the baby boomer generation, and now, as that generation ages, he is bringing a
new maturity to his work. He only seems to be getting better with age, and when
you consider that his first two films won Cannes Film Festival Awards and
Oscars, Spielberg is truly headed for legendary status.