One of the most influential personalities in the history of cinema, Steven Spielberg is Hollywood's best known director and one of the wealthiest filmmakers in the world. He has an extraordinary number of commercially successful and critically acclaimed credits to his name, either as a director, producer or writer since launching the summer blockbuster with Jaws (1975), and he has done more to define popular film-making since the mid-1970s than anyone else.

Family

Spouse (2)
Kate Capshaw
Amy Irving

Trivia

He is a member of Theta Chi Fraternity (Zeta Epsilon Chapter, Long Beach State University). One of his fraternity brothers was Roger Ernest.

Personal Quotes 

[on 1941 (1979)] I really didn't know what I was doing on this movie. I think one of the reasons it came out so chaotic is I really didn't have a vision for 1941. If Bob Zemeckis was the director, I'm convinced he would have done a much better job because that was really the kind of film the author should have stepped forward and directed. I think what killed the comedy was the amount of destruction, and the sheer noise level. I often describe 1941 as having your head stuck in a pinball machine while somebody is hitting tilt over and over again. Before 1941 I had experienced three great previews on The Sugarland Express (1974), Jaws (1975) and Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977). So I found this theatre in Texas called the Medallion that was my good luck theatre, so naturally I wanted to do the 1941 preview there. But that preview was not like the first three previews. I actually looked over the entire audience midway through the film and at least 20 per cent of the audience had their hands over their ears. I knew we were in big trouble at that point. At the end of the preview, Sid Sheinberg came over to me and said, "There is a movie somewhere in this mess. We should go off and find it." The rest of the executives didn't even want to talk to me. It was a very unhappy experience. We would have been better off with $10 million less, because we went from one plot to seven sub-plots. But, at the time, I wanted it - the bigness, the power, hundreds of people at my beck and call, millions of dollars at my disposal, and everybody saying "Yes...yes...yes!" 1941 was my "Little General" Period. I don't dislike the movie at all. I'm not embarrassed by it - I just think that it wasn't funny enough.