Actors - Steven Spielberg

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	Actors - Steven Spielberg

Steven Allan Spielberg, KBE (born December 18, 1946) is an American film director. He has won two Academy Awards (as well as a Lifetime Achievement Award), and ranks among the most successful filmmakers in history, in terms of both critical acclaim and popular success.

First coming to attention directing adventure films, Spielberg is noted in recent years for his willingness to tackle emotionally powerful issues, such as the horrors of the Holocaust in Schindler's List
, slavery in Amistad
, hardships of war in Saving Private Ryan
, and terrorism in Munich. One consistent theme in his family-friendly work is a childlike, even naïve, sense of wonderment and faith, as attested by works such as Close Encounters of the Third Kind
, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
, Hook and A.I., and the challenging role of a father-figure.

Spielberg is the most financially successful motion picture director of all time. He has directed and/or produced an astounding number of major box office hits, giving him enormous influence in Hollywood. As of 2004, he has been listed in Premiere and other magazines as the most "powerful" and "influential" figure in the motion picture industry.

In 2005, Empire magazine created a list of the 50 greatest film directors of all time. Spielberg was number one on the list.

He has been nominated for seven Academy Awards for Best Director, winning two of them (Schindler's List
and Saving Private Ryan
), and four of the films he directed were up for the Best Picture Oscar (Schindler's List won). He is seen as a figure who has the influence, financial resources, and acceptance of Hollywood studio authorities to make any movie he wants to make, be it a mainstream action-adventure movie (such as Jurassic Park
), or a three-hour-long black and white drama about the Holocaust (Schindler's List).

In 2001, he was given the honor of Knight Commander of the British Empire (KBE) by Queen Elizabeth II.

Childhood and early career

Spielberg was born to a Jewish American family in Cincinnati, Ohio; he was raised in the suburbs of Haddonfield, New Jersey and Scottsdale, Arizona. His German last name comes from the name of the Austrian city where his Hungarian Jewish ancestors lived in 17th century: Spielberg (which translates literally as play mountain). He is known by film historians as one of the famous "film-school generation" (also known as "the movie brats" or "the New Hollywood") of the 1970s: along with fellow filmmakers (and personal friends) George Lucas, Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, John Milius, and Brian De Palma, Spielberg grew up making movies. He was making amateur 8mm "adventure" movies with his friends as a teenager (scenes from these amateur films have been included on the DVD edition of Saving Private Ryan
), and he made his first short film for theatrical release, Amblin', in 1968 at the age of twenty one. (Spielberg's own production company, Amblin Entertainment, was named after this short film.) His true beginnings, like Robert Altman, are from television.

His maiden directorial work was a segment of the pilot film to Rod Serling's Night Gallery. While working on this segment its star Joan Crawford collared a production executive and said, "Keep an eye on this kid, he's going places." After directing episodes of various TV shows, including an early Columbo TV movie and a feature-length science fiction episode of The Name of the Game written by Philip Wylie and called "L.A. 2017", Spielberg directed his first well-known feature with a 1971 TV "movie-of-the-week" entitled Duel (later released to theatres overseas and eventually in the U.S.). This film, about a truck mysteriously terrorizing an average citizen, has become a cult classic, having been released on video several times over the years. Much of his early success was due to Sidney Sheinberg who is credited with discovering him; Spielberg also received an honorary degree from Brown University in 1999.

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