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Taken
- Steven Spielberg biography
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to introduction
 Steven
Spielberg is a principal partner of DreamWorks SKG, which he co-founded
with Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen in October 1994.
Under
their leadership, the studio has enjoyed critical and commercial
success, and has been responsible for some of the most honoured
films in recent years, including three consecutive Best Picture
Academy Award® winners: American Beauty, Gladiator and A Beautiful
Mind (the latter two co-produced with Universal).
One
of the industry’s most successful and influential filmmakers,
Spielberg has directed, produced, or executive produced a number
of the top-grossing films of all time, including Jurassic Park and
E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial.
Among
his myriad honours, 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.
A
DreamWorks/Paramount co-production, the critically acclaimed World
War II drama, Saving Private Ryan, starring Tom Hanks, was the highest-grossing
release (domestically) of 1998.
It
was also one of the year’s most honoured films, earning five
Oscars®, including the one for Spielberg as Best Director, as
well as two Golden Globe Awards for Best Picture (Drama) and Best
Director.
Spielberg
was also recognised by his peers with his third Directors Guild
of America (DGA) Award, and shared with the film's other producers
in the Producers Guild of America's (PGA) Darryl F. Zanuck Award
for Theatrical Motion Picture Producer of the Year.
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 honours 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.
Continuing
their collaboration, Spielberg and Hanks more recently executive
produced the award-winning World War II mini-series Band of Brothers
for HBO and DreamWorks Television.
Based
on the book of the same name by Stephen Ambrose, the fact-based
mini-series recently won both Emmy and Golden Globe Awards for Best
Mini-series.
In
1994, Spielberg won two Academy Awards® for Best Director and
Best Picture, for the internationally lauded Schindler’s List,
which received a total of seven Oscars®.
The
film also collected Best Picture honours from the major critics
organisations, 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 Colour Purple.
He
has also been honoured with Academy Award® nominations for Best
Director for E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, Raiders of the Lost Ark
and Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
Additionally,
he earned DGA Award nominations for those films, as well as Empire
of the Sun, Jaws and Amistad.
With
nine in all, Spielberg has received more DGA Award nominations than
any director in history.
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
on December 18, 1946 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 his becoming the youngest director ever to be signed
to a long-term deal with a major Hollywood studio.
Four
years later, he directed the suspenseful TV film 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
Raiders of the Lost Ark sequels, Indiana Jones and the Temple of
Doom and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
Spielberg
most recently directed DreamWorks’ Catch Me If You Can, starring
Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hanks.
His
other recent films include the futuristic thriller Minority Report,
starring Tom Cruise, and he also wrote, directed and produced A.I.,
which was realised from the vision of the late Stanley Kubrick.
In
2000, Spielberg won the Stanley Kubrick Brittania Award for Excellence
in Film, presented by BAFTA Los Angeles.
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, Men in Black and Men in Black II.
Amblin
Entertainment also produces the hit series ER with Warner Bros.
TV.
In
addition, Spielberg was an executive producer on the hit Deep Impact,
a DreamWorks/Paramount co-production.
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.
More
recently, Spielberg executive produced The Last Days, the Shoah
Foundation's third documentary, which won the Academy Award®
for Best Documentary Feature.
In
addition, Spielberg is the chairman of the Starbright Foundation,
which combines the efforts of paediatric health care, technology
and entertainment to empower seriously ill children.
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