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Steve Spielberg has directed, produced, or executive produced seven of the
thirty top-grossing films of all time, including Jurassic Park and E.T. The
Extra-Terrestrial. Among his myriad honors, he is a three-time Academy Award®
winner, earning two Oscars® for Best Director and Best Picture for
Schindler's List, and a third Oscar® for Best Director for Saving Private
Ryan. He has also received Academy Award® nominations for Best Director for
E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, Raiders of the Lost Ark and Close Encounters of
the Third Kind.
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Spielberg's critically acclaimed World War II drama Saving Private Ryan,
starring Tom Hanks, was the highest-grossing release (domestically) of 1998.
The film also won five Oscars®, including the one for Spielberg as Best
Director, as well as two Golden Globe Awards for Best Picture (Drama) and
Best Director. In addition, Spielberg was recognized by his peers with a
Directors Guild of America (DGA) Award, and shared with the film's other
producers in the Producers Guild of America's (PGA) Award. That year, the
PGA also presented Spielberg with the prestigious Milestone Award for his
historic contribution to the motion picture industry.
Saving Private Ryan also won Best Picture honors from the New York, Los
Angeles, Chicago, Toronto, British and Broadcast Film Critics Associations,
with the Los Angeles, Toronto and Broadcast Film Critics also naming
Spielberg Best Director.
On the heels of Saving Private Ryan, Spielberg and Hanks executive produced
the miniseries Band of Brothers for HBO and DreamWorks Television. Based on
the book of the same name by the late Stephen Ambrose, the fact-based World
War II project won both Emmy and Golden Globe Awards for Best Miniseries.
In 1994, Spielberg's internationally lauded Schindler's List was the year's
most honored film, receiving a total of seven Oscars®, including the
aforementioned nods for Best Picture and Best Director. The film also
collected Best Picture honors from many of the major critics organizations,
in addition to seven BAFTA Awards, including two for Spielberg. He also won
the Golden Globe Award and received his second DGA Award.
Spielberg won his first DGA Award for his work on The Color Purple and
earned DGA Award nominations for E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, Raiders of the
Lost Ark, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Empire of the Sun, Jaws and
Amistad. With nine in all, Spielberg has received more DGA Award nominations
than any director in history, and, in 2000, he received the DGA's Lifetime
Achievement Award. He is also 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.
Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, Spielberg was raised in the suburbs of
Haddonfield, New Jersey and Scottsdale, Arizona. He started making amateur
films while still in his teens, later studying film at California State
University, Long Beach. In 1969, his 22-minute short Amblin was shown at the
Atlanta Film Festival, which led to a deal with Universal, making him the
youngest director ever to be signed to a long-term deal with a major
Hollywood studio.
Four years later, he directed the suspenseful telefilm Duel, which garnered
both critical and audience attention. He made his feature film directorial
debut on The Sugarland Express from a screenplay he co-wrote. His other
earlier film credits as director include Always, Hook, and the Raiders of
the Lost Ark sequels Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and Indiana Jones
and the Last Crusade.
Spielberg's more recent films include the dramatic comedy Catch Me If You
Can, starring Tom Hanks, Leonardo DiCaprio and Christopher Walken, and the
futuristic thriller Minority Report, starring Tom Cruise. He will begin
shooting his next film, The Terminal, in Fall 2003, which will re-team
Spielberg with Hanks.
Spielberg is a principal partner of DreamWorks SKG, which he co-founded with
Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen in October 1994 to produce live-action
motion pictures, animated feature films, network and cable television
programming, home video entertainment, records, books, toys, and consumer
products.
In 1984, Spielberg formed his own production company, Amblin Entertainment.
Under the Amblin banner, he has served as producer or executive producer on
more than a dozen films, including such successes as Gremlins, Goonies, Back
to the Future I, II, and III, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, An American Tail, The
Land Before Time, The Flintstones, Casper, Twister, The Mask of Zorro and
Men in Black. Amblin Entertainment also produces the hit series "ER" with
Warner Bros. TV now in it's 10th season. In 2002, he executive produced the
dramatic 20-hour "Taken" for DreamWorks TV and the Sci-Fi Channel.
Spielberg has also devoted his time and resources to many philanthropic
causes. The impact of his experience making Schindler's List led him to
establish the Righteous Persons Foundation using all his profits from the
film. He also founded Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation,
which has recorded more than 50,000 Holocaust survivor testimonies and whose
worldwide mission is to overcome prejudice, intolerance, and bigotry -- and
the suffering they cause -- through the educational use of the Foundation's
visual history testimonies. In addition, Spielberg executive produced The
Last Days, the Shoah Foundation's third documentary, which won the Academy
Award® for Best Documentary Feature. He is also the chairman emeritus of the
Starbright Foundation, which combines the efforts of pediatric health care,
technology and entertainment to empower seriously ill children. |
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