"I
dream
for
a
living." The
Steven
Spielberg
quote
appears
next
to
a
large
black-and-white
picture
of
him
smiling
on
the
website
of
his
production
company,
Amblin.
Judging
from
the
career
of
the
75-year-old
American
film
director,
producer
and
screenwriter,
he
appears
to
be
living
his
dream
too.
And
he's
taken
generations
of
film
fans
along
for
the
ride.
Born
on
December
18,
1946,
in
Cincinnati,
Ohio,
Steven
Allen
Spielberg
moved
several
times
while
growing
up,
spending
part
of
his
youth
in
Arizona
and
most
of
his
working
life
in
the
mecca
of
moviemaking,
California.
Given
his
Orthodox
Jewish
heritage,
he
grew
up
listening
to
stories
of
how
some
of
his
ancestors
had
perished
in
the
Holocaust.
A
victim
of
antisemitic
bullying
at
school,
he
has
admitted
to
having
had
issues
with
his
Jewish
roots.
Decades
later,
his
catharsis
came
in
directing
the
harrowing
Holocaust
film
Schindler's
List,
which
would
earn
him
his
first
Academy
Award
for
best
director.
Joining
the
Boy
Scouts
aged
12,
and
wanting
to
obtain
a
photography
merit
badge,
he
had
used
his
father's
8
mm
movie
camera
and
submitted
a
nine-minute
film
titled
The
Last
Gunfight.
There
was
no
stopping
the
amateur
filmmaker
thereafter,
who
has
cited
1962's
Lawrence
of
Arabia
as
"the
film
that
set
me
on
my
journey."
That
journey
began
with
him
becoming
one
of
the
youngest
television
directors
for
Universal
in
the
late
1960s,
with
his
first
made-for-TV
film
entitled
Duel
in
1971
receiving
generally
positive
reviews.
In
1974,
Spielberg
made
his
debut
in
a
theatrical
film,
The
Sugarland
Express,
based
on
a
true
story
about
a
married
couple
on
the
run
and
desperate
to
regain
custody
of
their
baby
from
state-mandated
foster
parents.
It
would
also
mark
the
start
of
a
decades-long
collaboration
with
prolific
composer
John
Williams,
who
composed
the
scores
for
all
but
five
of
Spielberg's
films.
But
it
would
be
a
mechanical
shark
that
sometimes
failed
to
function
that
would
seal
his
reputation
as
a
filmmaker
who
could
draw
the
crowds
and
rake
the
dollars
-
breaking
box
office
records
at
the
time.
The
year
1975's
Jaws
is
now
considered
the
first-ever
summer
blockbuster.
The
sight
of
that
dorsal
fin
swiftly
slicing
through
the
waters
accompanied
by
John
Williams'
ominous
two-note
"shark
theme"
signaling
impending
danger
remains
spine
tingling
to
this
day.
There
was
no
stopping
Spielberg
thereafter.
His
films
-
often
featuring
children
or
adults
from
fractured
middle-class
families
or
ordinary
people
doing
extraordinary
things
-
evoke
a
gamut
of
emotions.
He
stoked
our
primal
fears
with
Jaws
or
War
of
the
Worlds
(2005);
brought
out
our
inner
child
through
E.T.
(1982)
and
The
Adventures
of
Tintin
(2011);
made
us
consider
worlds
beyond
ours
in
Close
Encounters
of
the
Third
Kind
(1977),
kept
us
riveted
by
the
derring-do
of
his
famed
archaeologist
Indiana
Jones
in
Raiders
of
the
Lost
Ark
(1981)
or
rooting
for
journalists
unearthing
uncomfortable
truths
in
The
Post
(2017).
We
watched
agog
as
long-extinct
predators
were
resurrected
and
roamed
the
earth
again
in
Jurassic
Park
(1993),
and
in
horror
at
the
violence
of
war
in
Saving
Private
Ryan
(1998),
which
earned
him
his
second
Academy
Award
for
best
director.
These
are
but
a
selection
of
the
films
he
has
directed.
The
mind
boggles
at
everything
else
he's
produced
or
written,
giving
the
impression
he's
covered
every
genre
in
the
filmmaking
book.
Through
his
production
house
Amblin
Entertainment,
which
he
founded
in
1981,
he
produced
hits
like
Gremlins,
the
Back
to
the
Future
trilogy,
Who
Framed
Roger
Rabbit,
the
Men
in
Black
series
or
Flags
of
Our
Fathers.
And
then
with
Dreamworks
SKG,
which
he
formed
in
1994
with
Jeffrey
Katzenberg
and
David
Geffen,
we
were
treated
to
groundbreaking
animated
films
such
as
Antz
(1998)
and
the
wildly
successful
Shrek
franchise.
They
however
sold
their
company
to
Viacom
in
2005
for
$1.6
billion.
Spielberg
will
now
enter
the
realm
of
streaming
services
too,
his
company
Amblin
Partners
having
signed
in
June
2021
a
deal
with
Netflix
to
produce
multiple
films
a
year
for
the
streaming
giant.
A
journey
through
genres
Having
covered
almost
all
genres
from
action-adventure,
sci-fi
fantasy,
horror,
historical
drama,
animation,
and
most
recently
musicals
through
"West
Side
Story,"
he
was
recently
asked
during
an
interview
with
Yahoo
if
there's
any
genre,
he'd
like
to
tackle
next.
"I
was
asked
that
question
over
the
last
40
years
of
my
career,
if
not
longer,
and
I
always
said
a
musical
was
the
one
thing
I
haven't
done,"
replied
the
director
who
also
once
wanted
to
do
a
James
Bond
film.
"The
thing
I
neglected
to
say,
which
I've
never
done,
and
the
one
genre
that
I
haven't
really
tackled
yet,
is
the
Western.
So,
who
knows,
maybe
I'll
be
putting
on
spurs
someday,
who
knows?"
Meanwhile,
a
fifth
Indiana
Jones
is
on
the
cards,
as
well
as
a
semi-autobiographical
coming-of-age
drama
called
The
Fabelmans.
While
West
Side
Story
(2021)
has
just
released,
dinosaur
fans
can
rejoice:
Jurassic
World:
Dominion
is
scheduled
for
release
in
summer
2022.