Facts About Steven Spielberg.

1. Steven Spielberg

2. Steven Allan Spielberg is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, and business magnate. He is regarded as one of the finest directors in motion picture history. Wikipedia
   
   Born: December 18, 1946, Cincinnati, Ohio, United States
   Spouse: Kate Capshaw (m. 1991), Amy Irving (m. 1985–1989)
   Children: Sasha Spielberg, Max Spielberg, more
   Upcoming movies: The Papers, Ready Player One
   Awards: Academy Award for Best Picture, more

Born on December 18, 1946, in Cincinnati, Ohio, Steven Spielberg was an amateur filmmaker as a child. He went on to become the enormously successful and Academy Award-winning director of such films as Schindler's List, The Color Purple, E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial and Saving Private Ryan. In 1994, he co-founded the studio Dreamworks SKG, which was purchased by Paramount Pictures in 2005.

In 1994, Steven Spielberg founded the USC Shoah Foundation Institute for Visual History and Education, originally called the Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation, a nonprofit organization established to record testimonies in video format of survivors and other witnesses of the Holocaust. Between 1994 and 1999, the Foundation conducted nearly 52,000 interviews in 56 countries and in 32 languages. Interviewees included Jewish survivors, Jehovah's Witness survivors, homosexual survivors, liberators and liberation witnesses, political prisoners, rescuers and aid providers, Roma and Sinti survivors, survivors of Eugenics policies, and war crimes trials participants. On September 20, 2005, the Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation and the University of Southern California (USC), where Spielberg had long been a Trustee, entered into an agreement to transfer the net assets and control over the Foundation's Board of Directors to USC in return for the guarantee of the preservation of the archive in perpetuity and the accommodation to continue the Foundation's mission.

Movies by Steven Spielberg:

Year	Film	Director	Producer	Executive Producer	Writer	Other	Notes
1968	Amblin'	Yes			Yes		Short film
1971	Duel	Yes					TV movie
1972	Something Evil	Yes					TV movie
1974	The Sugarland Express	Yes			Yes
1975	Jaws	Yes					Uncredited script writer
1977	Close Encounters of the Third Kind	Yes			Yes
1978	I Wanna Hold Your Hand			Yes		Yes
1979	1941	Yes
1980	The Blues Brothers					Yes	Actor (small part)
	Used Cars			Yes		Yes
1981	Continental Divide			Yes		Yes
	Raiders of the Lost Ark	Yes
1982	E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial	Yes	Yes
	Poltergeist		Yes		Yes
1983	Twilight Zone: The Movie	Yes	Yes				Segment: "Kick the Can"
1984	Gremlins			Yes		Yes
	Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom	Yes
	Room 666					Yes	Himself
1985	Fandango			Yes		Yes
	Back to the Future			Yes		Yes
	The Color Purple	Yes	Yes
	The Goonies			Yes	Yes	Yes
	Young Sherlock Holmes			Yes		Yes
1986	An American Tail			Yes		Yes
	The Money Pit			Yes		Yes
	Poltergeist II: The Other Side				Yes		Based on characters by credit
1987	Batteries Not Included			Yes		Yes
	Empire of the Sun	Yes	Yes
	Innerspace			Yes		Yes
	Three O'Clock High			Yes		Yes
1988	Poltergeist III				Yes		Based on characters by credit
	Who Framed Roger Rabbit			Yes		Yes
	The Land Before Time			Yes		Yes
1989	Always	Yes	Yes
	Back to the Future Part II			Yes		Yes
	Dad			Yes		Yes
	Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade	Yes
	Tummy Trouble			Yes		Yes
1990	Arachnophobia			Yes		Yes
	Dreams			Yes		Yes
	Back to the Future Part III			Yes		Yes
	Gremlins 2: The New Batch			Yes		Yes
	Joe Versus the Volcano			Yes		Yes
	Roller Coaster Rabbit			Yes		Yes
1991	A Wish for Wings That Work			Yes		Yes
	An American Tail: Fievel Goes West		Yes
	Cape Fear			Yes		Yes
	Hook	Yes
	Tiny Toon Adventures: How I Spent My Vacation			Yes		Yes
	A Brief History of Time			Yes		Yes
1993	Trail Mix-Up			Yes		Yes
	Jurassic Park	Yes
	We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story			Yes		Yes
	Schindler's List	Yes	Yes
1994	The Flintstones			Yes		Yes
1995	Casper			Yes		Yes
	Balto			Yes		Yes
1996	Twister			Yes		Yes
1997	The Lost World: Jurassic Park	Yes
	Men in Black			Yes		Yes
	Amistad	Yes	Yes
1998	Saving Private Ryan	Yes	Yes
	The Last Days			Yes		Yes
	The Mask of Zorro			Yes		Yes
	Deep Impact			Yes		Yes
1999	Wakko's Wish			Yes		Yes
	Medal of Honor					Yes	Video game, original concept
2000	Shooting War			Yes		Yes
2001	A.I. Artificial Intelligence	Yes	Yes		Yes
	Jurassic Park III			Yes		Yes
	Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures					Yes	Himself
	Vanilla Sky					Yes	Guest at David Aames' Party
2002	Minority Report	Yes
	Men in Black II			Yes		Yes
	Austin Powers in Goldmember					Yes	Himself
	Catch Me If You Can	Yes	Yes
2004	Double Dare					Yes	Himself
	The Cutting Edge: The Magic of Movie Editing					Yes	Himself
	The Terminal	Yes	Yes
2005	Directed by John Ford					Yes	Himself
	War of the Worlds	Yes
	The Legend of Zorro			Yes		Yes
	Memoirs of a Geisha		Yes
	Munich	Yes	Yes
2006	Flags of Our Fathers		Yes
	Letters from Iwo Jima		Yes
	Monster House			Yes		Yes
	The Shark Is Still Working					Yes	Himself
2007	Transformers			Yes		Yes
2008	Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull	Yes
	Eagle Eye			Yes		Yes
2009	Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen			Yes		Yes
	The Lovely Bones			Yes		Yes
2010	Hollywood Don't Surf!					Yes	Himself
	Hereafter			Yes		Yes
	True Grit			Yes		Yes
2011	Paul					Yes	Himself
	Super 8		Yes
	Transformers: Dark of the Moon			Yes		Yes
	Cowboys & Aliens			Yes		Yes
	Real Steel			Yes		Yes
	The Adventures of Tintin	Yes	Yes
	War Horse	Yes	Yes
2012	Men in Black 3			Yes		Yes
	Lincoln	Yes	Yes
2014	Transformers: Age of Extinction			Yes		Yes
	The Hundred-Foot Journey		Yes
2015	Poltergeist					Yes	Based on characters by credit (remake of the 1982 film)
	Jurassic World			Yes		Yes
	Bridge of Spies	Yes	Yes
2016	The BFG	Yes	Yes
2017	Transformers: The Last Knight			Yes		Yes
	The Post	Yes	Yes
2018	Ready Player One	Yes	Yes
	Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom			Yes		Yes
2020	Indiana Jones 5	Yes
TBA	The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara	Yes
	It's What I Do	Yes

VIDEO

Some facts you may not know about the director:


1. While filming Close Encounters, Spielberg had been receiving reports of a guy who was running around L.A. pretending to be him. The imposter had been getting people to pay for his dinners, and had been giving Steven a generally bad name. Steven was upset, so he took an ad in The Hollywood Reporter:


“To the gullible and defenceless: The man walking the streets of Los Angeles is not Steven Spielberg. Steven Spielberg is in Alabama, making Close Encounters of the Third Kind. At least do not allow this sad fraud to make you pay for dinner. This year, Steven Spielberg can afford a meal.”


2. When Spielberg first showed John Williams a cut of Schindler’s List, Williams was so moved he had to take a walk outside for several minutes so he could collect himself. When he returned, he told Spielberg he deserved a better composer. Spielberg’s reply? “I know, but they are all dead.”

3. Spielberg still makes money on Star Wars over thirty years after making a bet with George Lucas. Lucas was so sure it would be a flop in 1977, he offered Spielberg a percentage of the takings from his sci-fi epic, in exchange for the same percentage from Close Encounters of the Third Kind, confident that Close Encounters of the Third Kindwould be a bigger film. Spielberg recalls “George came back from Star Wars a nervous wreck. He didn’t feel Star Wars came up to the vision he initially had. He felt he had just made this little kids’ movie. He came to Mobile, Alabama, where I was shooting Close Encounters on this humongous set andStar Wars. This is gonna be the biggest hit of all time, you want to trade some points? I’ll give you two and a half per cent of Star Wars, if you give me two and a half per cent of Close Encounters". I said “Sure, I’ll gamble with that, great. And I think I came out on top of that bet. Close Encounters made so much money, it rescued Columbia from bankruptcy. It was the most money I had ever made, but it was a meagre success story. Star Wars was a phenomenon and I was the happy beneficiary of a couple of points from that movie which I am still seeing money on today”.

hung out with me for a couple of days. “He said, 'Oh my God, your movie is going to be so much more successful than


4. Steven Spielberg features in the music video for Michael Jackson’s “Liberian Girl”.


5. Spielberg’s latest film Lincoln is considered one of his most successful movies. However, it does contain one major flaw. During the movie, when votes are being cast for the 13th amendment outlawing slavery, the state of Connecticut is portrayed to have voted in favour of slavery, whereas history states otherwise! Spielberg plans to correct this before the release of the DVD.


6. If Spielberg hadn't become a film director, he would have become a video game designer.


7. He is an Advocate for adoption. Along with his wife – Spielberg co-founded the Children’s Action Network in 1990, which strives to place children in loving homes and provide support for those in foster care.


8. He never intends on retiring!


9. He is a huge fan of Norman Rockwell - the artist who captured the American experience. The painting “Pardon me (Children dancing at a party)” is part of Spielberg’s collection.


10. Steven Spielberg almost directed an episode of Twin Peaks.


11. Based on a true story, Schindler’s List is widely considered to be Spielberg’s best film. It earned him his first Oscar in 1993 for Best Director. He did, however, initially intend to ask someone else to make the film. In 1983, he managed to convince Universal Studios to buy the rights to the novel Schindler’s Ark. During a meeting with the writer, he told him he would get started on the movie “ten years from now”. Spielberg had doubts about his maturity to direct such a movie about the Holocaust. He initially approached director Roman Polanski to film it for him. However, he declined, as his mother had been killed at Auschwitz. Martin Scorsese was linked to the film, but Spielberg chose to do it himself. He didn’t want to miss the opportunity of make a movie about the Holocaust for his children. This movie was considered to be the most expensive black and white film ever made. Spielberg refused to receive any payment for his work on this movie, as he felt that any money accepted would be “blood money”, considering the Holocaust. He was given permission to shoot the film within Auschwitz concentration camp, but he decided against it as he had so much respect for the victims. Robin Williams took to calling Spielberg every two weeks while filming Schindler's List to lift his spirits with various jokes, mainly because there wasn’t much humor on the set.


12. Spielberg wanted to direct a James Bond movie but was rejected! The producers of the James Bond franchise turned down his offer to direct one of the films early in his career not once but twice.


13. Spielberg’s cocker spaniel Elmer appeared in The Sugarland Express, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, 1941 and also in ‘Jaws’


14. He hates coffee. “I don’t drink coffee. I’ve never had a cup of coffee in my entire life. That’s something you probably don’t know about me. I’ve hated the taste since I was a kid.”


15. Same-sex marriage is an issue that Hollywood celebrities have openly talked about. Spielberg is no different. He and his wife support same-sex marriage, and have made donations towards this cause. Spielberg even resigned from the Advisory Board of Boy Scouts of America citing this issue, as The Boy Scouts of America were against homosexuality, which offended Spielberg.


16. Steven Spielberg on Johnny Williams: "I’ve always felt that Johnny was my musical re-write artist. He’d come in, see my movie and musically re-write the whole thing. He makes it much better. He can take a moment and uplift it. He can take a tear that’s just forming in your eye and make it fall"



For all the latest on Steven Spielberg head to The Bearded Trio website. Updated daily on Spielberg, John Williams and George Lucas.




Some information taken from Wikipedia