Steven Spielberg

Steven Allan Spielberg was born in Cincinnati, Ohio on December 18, 1946, to an Orthodox Jewish family. In 1953, the family moved to Phoenix, AZ where Steven Spielberg went to Hebrew school from 1953 to 1957. In his early teen years, Spielberg made his first home movie of a train wreck with his toy Lionel trains. Growing up, Spielberg had made nine-minute 8 mm film and one of his films was entitled The Last Gunfight.

As Steven Spielberg grew up in Phoenix, he would charge admission to his home movies and his sister would sell popcorn. Steven excelled in making movies, but he was not a good student. In fact, Steven hated school and was considered one of the most unusual students there. Steven would prefer not to do his homework and
instead work on movies with his camera. Steven would involve the family with his projects and his father would help him make miniature sets out of paper Mache. At the age of thirteen Steven made his first production, with script and actors. One year later Steven won a prize for a war movie he made titled “Escape to Nowhere” which was forty minutes long.

Throughout his early teens, and after entering Arcadia High school in Phoenix, Spielberg continued to make amateur 8 mm "adventure" films. After 3 years of high school, Steven moved to Saratoga, California where he attended and graduated from Saratoga High School. Stevens’s parents divorced during the year of 1965 while he was still in school. Once he graduated high school, he moved with his father in Los Angeles, California.

In the late 1960’s Steven had become one of the youngest television directors for Universal. In 1972 a highly praised television, film, brought him the opportunity to direct for the cinema, and a string of hits has made him the most commercially successful director of all time. Spielberg is being viewed to be one of the most influential and popular producers and directors in film history. Spielberg was turned down when he had applied for film school at the University of Southern California, due to his “C” grade average. Despite the turn down, Steven applied and attended California State University in Long Beach, where he majored in English. While attending the university, Steven worked at an intern job where he was not getting paid.

Spielberg eventually went to work for Universal Studios in the editing department. While working there he made a 26 minute short film which he wrote and directed and won a number of awards. Sidney Sheinberg was impressed by Steven’s film work that he offered a seven year directing contract. In history, Spielberg was the youngest director to be signed to a long term deal with a major Hollywood studio. While in college, he dropped out to start his career in directing TV productions with Universal.

Spielberg dedicated to make many types of films, in 1975 he filmed Jaws a primeval fear movie, in 1977 “Encounters of the Third Kind and in 1982 E.T.
which expressed childlike wonder at the marvels of this world. In 1985, he created beyond and literary adaptations like “The Color Purple”. Steven’s popularity directing, producing and filming has gained him several awards and honors including many Academy Awards. In 1986, Spielberg received the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

In 1982, Spielberg’s first film company, Amblin Entertainment was founded. The film company along with Spielberg, produced several successful films like Back to the Future in 1985, followed by two sequels, and Who Framed Roger Rabbit in 1988. There were three top star films that Spielberg filmed and grossed an estimated amount of $8.5 billion and that’s was in E.T., Jaws and Jurassic Park. (Editors, 2015)

During the year of 1994, Steven co-founded the studio DreamWorks, which was eventually purchased by Paramount Pictures in 2005. In 1998, Steven filmed “Saving Private Ryan” a film generated from revisiting World War II from the viewpoint of American soldiers in Europe and earned him another Academy Award for Best Director. Spielberg received the Directors Guild of America Lifetime Achievement Award and the French Legion of Honor in recognition of his work in 2004. And in the year 2005, Spielberg received the honor, into the Science Fiction Hall of
Fame.

In 2008, Steven Spielberg announced that he would be entering the business of video games. His first game called “Boom Blox”, a family and friendly puzzle game for the Nintendo Wii which was made under a multi-project arrangement with Electronic Arts. Spielberg got involved with EA because he is a gamer, Castle stated that Spielberg is a very big game player and that not a lot of people know that. Castle also quoted, “He loves playing games and that Spielberg wanted to play a game that he would be able to with his friends and family.” (Waters, 2008) Castle stated that Spielberg came to Electronic Arts with an idea for the game and had been working with them on a weekly basis, overseeing the development of the game and working with Castle personally on the product. Despite his commitment to film-making, both directing and producing titles, Spielberg was dedicated to the game development process. Boom Blox uses the Wii's innovative controller to give players freedom to wreak havoc in the game. "Steven wanted to make a game where the complexity and challenge of using your brain to look at three dimensional puzzles, and throw objects at it, and knock them over, which was intriguing enough for adults to be interested. (Waters, 2008) Steven Spielberg’s life is very fascinating, from his youth to adulthood in the film industry. He has maintained his life as a filmmaker, director and producer and is very famous for all his films. Steven currently has five children and two step children with his current wife Kate Capshaw which is his second marriage. Steven Spielberg has a son from his first marriage to actress Amy Irving. At the age of 68, Steven Spielberg is worth $3.6 Billion dollars.