Steven Spielberg

Season 5, Episode 504

Original Airdate: March 14, 1999

Steven Spielberg, it seems, has always been a film director. Though not a graduate of any film school program, he has become the most commercially successful director in Hollywood, while maintaining steady critical acclaim. He changed the nature of movies in the 1970s, and continues to be a major movie-making force.

At the age of 12 Steven Spielberg used the money from his tree-planting business to fund his first film. In 1968, while still in college, he made Amblin', a short film about two hitchhikers. It was screened at the Atlanta Film Festival and earned the 21 year old wunderkind a seven- year contract as a TV director.

Spielberg made his directing debut in the pilot episode of Night Gallery, and continued with episodes of TV shows like Columbo and Marcus Welby, M.D. One of his television movies, Duel, became an instant cult classic.

Spielberg's first feature film, The Sugarland Express (1974), starring Goldie Hawn, was well-received enough to convince studio execs to let him direct Jaws (1975). Production on the film overran by 100 days, with the set plauged by problems like a mechanical shark that sunk. But the end result became the definitive “summer blockbuster” movie.

Instantly upgraded to Hollywood's A-list, Spielberg followed up his shark success two years later with Close Encounters of the Third Kind - again starring Richard Dreyfuss, and again a huge hit. In addition, Spielberg was Oscar-nominated for Best Director. Spielberg followed Close Encounters with the disappointing comedy 1941.

He quickly rebounded with his next film, a collaboration with Star Wars director George Lucas. Raiders of the Lost Ark harkened back to the adventure serials they had loved as kids. The movie was a blockbuster hit. Spielberg received another Best Director Oscar nomination. The film also spawned two successful sequels, both directed by Spielberg: 1984's Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and 1989's Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

Spielberg's next film was the touching story of a young boy who befriends a small creature from outerspace called E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982.) E.T. became an instant classic, with equal appeal for kids and adults alike. It became one of the highest grossing films of all time. Beyond even his own directing successes, Spielberg has had a hand in a dizzying number of favorite Hollywood hits (including Poltergeist, Gremlins, Back to the Future, The Goonies, Who Framed Roger Rabbit? and Men in Black). After little more than a decade in the business, he was one of the richest and most powerful players in Hollywood. In 1984, he created his own independent company, Amblin Entertainment.

In 1985, reacting to criticism that he couldn't make a serious adult picture, he directed The Color Purple. Though a Jewish man might not have seemed the most logical choice to direct Alice Walker's tale of a poor black woman in the South, Spielberg delivered with an epic film filled with feeling. It was the major screen debut for both Whoopi Goldberg and Oprah Winfrey, and received 11 Oscar nominations, but none for Spielberg. Perhaps acknowledging the slight, the next year Spielberg was presented with the Academy's Irving G. Thalberg award.