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Steven Spielberg

1947-

Writer; Director; Producer

             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.

 

Biobliography

 

"Biography" <http://members.aol.com/_ht_a/Hernder67/biog.html> (12 Feb. 2001) 

"The Steven Spielberg Encyclopedia" <http://www.bttf.com/ss_bio.htm> (12 Feb. 2001) 

Mr. Showbiz  "Steven Spielberg" <http://mrshowbiz.go.com/people/stevenspielberg/content/bio.html> (13 Feb. 2001)

Joseph McBride "Steven Spielberg: A Biography" (13 Feb. 2001)

 

 


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