Steven Spielberg

Steven Spielberg is one of the world’s most respected, successful and celebrated filmmakers. While he has relinquished the director’s chair to long-time colleague Joe Johnston on the third film in one of Hollywood’s most fruitful franchises, Spielberg guided both Jurassic Park and its 1997 sequel, The Lost World: Jurassic Park, to global grosses exceeding $1.5 billion. The latter still holds the all-time box office record for its opening-weekend gross of $92.7 million during the 1997 Memorial Day weekend.

The 1993 original, which collected $913,000,000 at the worldwide box office and three Academy Awards® (for Best Visual Effects, Best Sound and Best Sound Effects Editing), came out the same year that Spielberg’s Schindler’s List won seven Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director, marking a professional peak for the consummate filmmaker.

Schindler’s List also won every major Best Picture award and an exceptional number of additional honors, including seven British Academy Awards (BAFTA), the National Board of Review, the Producers Guild, the National Society of Film Critics, a Christopher Award and the Golden Globe. Spielberg himself was also honored with the Directors Guild Award. Acclaimed throughout the world, Schindler’s List has been seen by more than 75 million people in theaters and millions more on video cassette. In February, 1997, it was shown in its entirety as a television special, seen by more than 65 million viewers. It was later shown a second time on NBC and this year was shown twice as a special presentation on PBS. In 1998, the American Film Institute selected the film as one of the 10 best American films ever made.

Spielberg collected his second Best Director Academy Award® and another DGA honor for Saving Private Ryan, one of the top earning films of 1998. The film also went on to capture awards from virtually every critics and industry organization.

Spielberg has been associated as director or producer on seven of the top 25 highest grossing films of all time. His films E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial and Jurassic Park hold the fourth and fifth spots respectively.

He collected his first Directors Guild Award for The Color Purple, and also earned DGA nominations for Empire of the Sun, Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Raiders of the Lost Ark and E.T. For the last three titles, he was also nominated for the Best Director Academy Award®.

He is the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Film Institute and the prestigious Irving G. Thalberg Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Spielberg, who was born in Cincinnati and spent most of his childhood in the suburbs of Haddonfield, New Jersey, and Scottsdale, Arizona, made his first film with actors at the age of twelve and throughout his teens made several ambitious amateur films. He later studied the craft at California State University, Long Beach. After making five short films, his 22-minute Amblin, was shown at the 1969 Atlanta Film Festival. The talents he displayed in this short film led to a unique seven-year contract with Universal Pictures, making him the youngest director ever to land a long-term deal with a major Hollywood studio.

After directing several dramatic shows for Universal Television, including episodes of Night Gallery, Marcus Welby, M.D. and Columbo, Spielberg directed the acclaimed made-for-television feature Duel in 1973. He made his big-screen directing debut with The Sugarland Express in 1974. Then, teamed with George Lucas, who was executive producer, Spielberg directed the immensely popular trilogy of Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

Among his other films as director are Hook, Always and the recently completed A.I. He is currently filming Minority Report, which began production in April, 2001.

He also co-wrote and co-produced Poltergeist, and has served, through his Amblin Entertainment banner, as an executive producer on more than a dozen films, including Gremlins, The Goonies, the Back to the Future trilogy, An American Tail, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, Twister, Men in Black and The Land Before Time.

Spielberg is currently a partner with Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen in DreamWorks SKG, a multimedia entertainment production entity.