Biography - Steven Spielberg

For a nerdy kid from Cincinnati, Steven Spielberg has done pretty well for himself, considering that he’s the only director alive who boasts the bankability and eminent popularity of the A-list movie stars that he frequently casts. Born in Cincinnati in 1946 to Jewish-American parents, Spielberg was raised in Haddonfield, New Jersey and eventually Scottsdale, Arizona. He made a variety of 8mm short films as a child, and knew that movies were in his future. The young director studied briefly at Long Beach University, and famously attempted to gain admission to the prestigious University of Southern California School of Cinema-Television, but was denied.

Like many directors of the 1970s, Spielberg got his start directing television episodes, and by 1971 directed his first feature-length film, “Duel”. The semi-truck-gone-awry story was made for television, but due to its quality eventually received a modest theatrical release. That film and 1974’s “The Sugarland Express” (starring a young Goldie Hawn) made Spielberg a well-known young talent, and led to the humble director’s work on “Jaws”. Despite the shark attack film’s horrendously turbulent production, it captivated audiences and critics and quickly became the highest-grossing film of all time. The rest is history, and anyone reading this has probably seen the majority of Spielberg’s subsequent films, such as “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”, “Raiders of the Lost Ark”, and “E.T.”. The latter two films still rank among the biggest hits of all time, with the heart-warming “E.T.” firmly in place near the top.

One of the most crowd-pleasing and undeniably talented commercial filmmakers of all time, Spielberg is commonly associated with the ‘movie brats’ of the 70s New Hollywood, which saw the first batch of artistically-minded film school grads rise to prominence in the fractured, capital-hungry Hollywood of the late 1960s. These directors include Martin Scorsese, Brian De Palma, George Lucas, John Milius, Francis Ford Coppola, Peter Bogdanovich, and William Friedkin. Spielberg’s sensibilities are most closely aligned with those of “Star Wars” creator Lucas, as both have made extraordinarily profitable careers from sci-fi/action blockbusters and heart-tugging, broad-appeal family films. When Michael Cimino’s interminable and overwrought western “Heaven’s Gate” killed the New Hollywood in 1980, Spielberg survived the pitfall by continuing with a string of hits including two critically maligned but beloved Indiana Jones sequels.

Spielberg turned to producing in the 80s, bringing audiences blockbusters from Joe Dante and Robert Zemeckis. This period was the weakest for the director’s own projects, with films like “Always” and 1991’s “Hook” failing to capture the magic of his previous efforts. But in 1993 he returned to top form with “Jurassic Park” and the striking Holocaust drama “Schindler’s List”, two wonderful films on opposite ends of the dramatic spectrum. “Jurassic Park” was an awe-inspiring, captivating adventure, and “Schindler’s List” finally earned Spielberg major artistic recognition as it took home Oscar statues for Best Picture and Director. He then took a much-deserved break from directing, but returned in 1997 with a sequel to the dino blockbuster, “The Lost World”, and the slavery drama “Amistad”. Spielberg followed up this duo with the acclaimed Tom Hanks-starring World War II film “Saving Private Ryan”, which earned him another Best Director Oscar.

Spielberg is still churning out exceptional mainstream blockbusters and historical dramas like 2005’s politically challenging “Munich”. Combined with his producing efforts and his historic corporate partnership with David Geffen and Jeffrey Katzenberg, which formed Dreamworks SKG, Spielberg’s films continue to be the most influential in Hollywood.