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- Producer
- Director
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Martin Charles Scorsese was born on November 17, 1942 in Queens, New York City, to Catherine Scorsese (née Cappa) and Charles Scorsese, who both worked in Manhattan's garment district, and whose families both came from Palermo, Sicily. He was raised in the neighborhood of Little Italy, which later provided the inspiration for several of his films. Scorsese earned a B.S. degree in film communications in 1964, followed by an M.A. in the same field in 1966 at New York University's School of Film. During this time, he made numerous prize-winning short films including The Big Shave (1967), and directed his first feature film, Who's That Knocking at My Door (1967).
He served as assistant director and an editor of the documentary Woodstock (1970) and won critical and popular acclaim for Mean Streets (1973), which first paired him with actor and frequent collaborator Robert De Niro. In 1976, Scorsese's Taxi Driver (1976), also starring De Niro, was awarded the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, and he followed that film with New York, New York (1977) and The Last Waltz (1978). Scorsese directed De Niro to an Oscar-winning performance as boxer Jake LaMotta in Raging Bull (1980), which received eight Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture and Best Director, and is hailed as one of the masterpieces of modern cinema. Scorsese went on to direct The Color of Money (1986), The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), Goodfellas (1990), Cape Fear (1991), The Age of Innocence (1993), Casino (1995) and Kundun (1997), among other films. Commissioned by the British Film Institute to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the birth of cinema, Scorsese completed the four-hour documentary, A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies (1995), co-directed by Michael Henry Wilson.
His long-cherished project, Gangs of New York (2002), earned numerous critical honors, including a Golden Globe Award for Best Director; the Howard Hughes biopic The Aviator (2004) won five Academy Awards, in addition to the Golden Globe and BAFTA awards for Best Picture. Scorsese won his first Academy Award for Best Director for The Departed (2006), which was also honored with the Director's Guild of America, Golden Globe, New York Film Critics, National Board of Review and Critic's Choice awards for Best Director, in addition to four Academy Awards, including Best Picture. Scorsese's documentary of the Rolling Stones in concert, Shine a Light (2008), followed, with the successful thriller Shutter Island (2010) two years later. Scorsese received his seventh Academy Award nomination for Best Director, as well as a Golden Globe Award, for Hugo (2011), which went on to win five Academy Awards.
Scorsese also serves as executive producer on the HBO series Boardwalk Empire (2010) for which he directed the pilot episode. Scorsese's additional awards and honors include the Golden Lion from the Venice Film Festival (1995), the AFI Life Achievement Award (1997), the Honoree at the Film Society of Lincoln Center's 25th Gala Tribute (1998), the DGA Lifetime Achievement Award (2003), The Kennedy Center Honors (2007) and the HFPA Cecil B. DeMille Award (2010). Scorsese and actor Leonardo DiCaprio have worked together on five separate occasions: Gangs of New York (2002), The Aviator (2004), The Departed (2006), Shutter Island (2010) and The Wolf of Wall Street (2013).- Producer
- Writer
- Director
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.
Steven Allan Spielberg was born in 1946 in Cincinnati, Ohio, to Leah Frances (Posner), a concert pianist and restaurateur, and Arnold Spielberg, an electrical engineer who worked in computer development. His parents were both born to Russian Jewish immigrant families. Steven spent his younger years in Haddon Township, New Jersey, Phoenix, Arizona, and later Saratoga, California. He went to California State University Long Beach, but dropped out to pursue his entertainment career. Among his early directing efforts were Battle Squad (1961), which combined World War II footage with footage of an airplane on the ground that he makes you believe is moving. He also directed Escape to Nowhere (1961), which featured children as World War Two soldiers, including his sister Anne Spielberg, and The Last Gun (1959), a western. All of these were short films. The next couple of years, Spielberg directed a couple of movies that would portend his future career in movies. In 1964, he directed Firelight (1964), a movie about aliens invading a small town. In 1967, he directed Slipstream (1967), which was unfinished. However, in 1968, he directed Amblin' (1968), which featured the desert prominently, and not the first of his movies in which the desert would feature. Amblin' also became the name of his production company, which turned out such classics as E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982). Spielberg had a unique and classic early directing project, Duel (1971), with Dennis Weaver. In the early 1970s, Spielberg was working on TV, directing among others such series as Rod Serling's Night Gallery (1969), Marcus Welby, M.D. (1969) and Murder by the Book (1971). All of his work in television and short films, as well as his directing projects, were just a hint of the wellspring of talent that would dazzle audiences all over the world.
Spielberg's first major directorial effort was The Sugarland Express (1974), with Goldie Hawn, a film that marked him as a rising star. It was his next effort, however, that made him an international superstar among directors: Jaws (1975). This classic shark attack tale started the tradition of the summer blockbuster or, at least, he was credited with starting the tradition. His next film was the classic Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), a unique and original UFO story that remains a classic. In 1978, Spielberg produced his first film, the forgettable I Wanna Hold Your Hand (1978), and followed that effort with Used Cars (1980), a critically acclaimed, but mostly forgotten, Kurt Russell/Jack Warden comedy about devious used-car dealers. Spielberg hit gold yet one more time with Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), with Harrison Ford taking the part of Indiana Jones. Spielberg produced and directed two films in 1982. The first was Poltergeist (1982), but the highest-grossing movie of all time up to that point was the alien story E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982). Spielberg also helped pioneer the practice of product placement. The concept, while not uncommon, was still relatively low-key when Spielberg raised the practice to almost an art form with his famous (or infamous) placement of Reese's Pieces in "E.T." Spielberg was also one of the pioneers of the big-grossing special-effects movies, like "E.T." and "Close Encounters", where a very strong emphasis on special effects was placed for the first time on such a huge scale. In 1984, Spielberg followed up "Raiders" with Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984), which was a commercial success but did not receive the critical acclaim of its predecessor. As a producer, Spielberg took on many projects in the 1980s, such as The Goonies (1985), and was the brains behind the little monsters in Gremlins (1984). He also produced the cartoon An American Tail (1986), a quaint little animated classic. His biggest effort as producer in 1985, however, was the blockbuster Back to the Future (1985), which made Michael J. Fox an instant superstar. As director, Spielberg took on the book The Color Purple (1985), with Whoopi Goldberg and Oprah Winfrey, with great success. In the latter half of the 1980s, he also directed Empire of the Sun (1987), a mixed success for the occasionally erratic Spielberg. Success would not escape him for long, though.
The late 1980s found Spielberg's projects at the center of pop-culture yet again. In 1988, he produced the landmark animation/live-action film Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988). The next year proved to be another big one for Spielberg, as he produced and directed Always (1989) as well as Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), and Back to the Future Part II (1989). All three of the films were box-office and critical successes. Also, in 1989, he produced the little known comedy-drama Dad (1989), with Jack Lemmon and Ted Danson, which got mostly mixed results. Spielberg has also had an affinity for animation and has been a strong voice in animation in the 1990s. Aside from producing the landmark "Who Framed Roger Rabbit", he produced the animated series Tiny Toon Adventures (1990), Animaniacs (1993), Pinky and the Brain (1995), Freakazoid! (1995), Pinky, Elmyra & the Brain (1998), Family Dog (1993) and Toonsylvania (1998). Spielberg also produced other cartoons such as The Land Before Time (1988), We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story (1993), Casper (1995) (the live action version) as well as the live-action version of The Flintstones (1994), where he was credited as "Steven Spielrock". Spielberg also produced many Roger Rabbit short cartoons, and many Pinky and the Brain, Animaniacs and Tiny Toons specials. Spielberg was very active in the early 1990s, as he directed Hook (1991) and produced such films as the cute fantasy Joe Versus the Volcano (1990) and An American Tail: Fievel Goes West (1991). He also produced the unusual comedy thriller Arachnophobia (1990), Back to the Future Part III (1990) and Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990). While these movies were big successes in their own right, they did not quite bring in the kind of box office or critical acclaim as previous efforts. In 1993, Spielberg directed Jurassic Park (1993), which for a short time held the record as the highest grossing movie of all time, but did not have the universal appeal of his previous efforts. Big box-office spectacles were not his only concern, though. He produced and directed Schindler's List (1993), a stirring film about the Holocaust. He won best director at the Oscars, and also got Best Picture. In the mid-90s, he helped found the production company DreamWorks, which was responsible for many box-office successes.
As a producer, he was very active in the late 90s, responsible for such films as The Mask of Zorro (1998), Men in Black (1997) and Deep Impact (1998). However, it was on the directing front that Spielberg was in top form. He directed and produced the epic Amistad (1997), a spectacular film that was shorted at the Oscars and in release due to the fact that its release date was moved around so much in late 1997. The next year, however, produced what many believe was one of the best films of his career: Saving Private Ryan (1998), a film about World War Two that is spectacular in almost every respect. It was stiffed at the Oscars, losing best picture to Shakespeare in Love (1998).
Spielberg produced a series of films, including Evolution (2001), The Haunting (1999) and Shrek (2001). he also produced two sequels to Jurassic Park (1993), which were financially but not particularly critical successes. In 2001, he produced a mini-series about World War Two that definitely *was* a financial and critical success: Band of Brothers (2001), a tale of an infantry company from its parachuting into France during the invasion to the Battle of the Bulge. Also in that year, Spielberg was back in the director's chair for A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001), a movie with a message and a huge budget. It did reasonably at the box office and garnered varied reviews from critics.
Spielberg has been extremely active in films there are many other things he has done as well. He produced the short-lived TV series SeaQuest 2032 (1993), an anthology series entitled Amazing Stories (1985), created the video-game series "Medal of Honor" set during World War Two, and was a starting producer of ER (1994). Spielberg, if you haven't noticed, has a great interest in World War Two. He and Tom Hanks collaborated on Shooting War: World War II Combat Cameramen (2000), a documentary about World War II combat photographers, and he produced a documentary about the Holocaust called Eyes of the Holocaust (2000). With all of this to Spielberg's credit, it's no wonder that he's looked at as one of the greatest ever figures in entertainment.- Director
- Producer
- Writer
Oliver Stone has become known as a master of controversial subjects and a legendary film maker. His films are filled with a variety of film angles and styles, he pushes his actors to give Oscar-worthy performances, and despite his failures, has always returned to success.
William Oliver Stone was born in New York City, to Jacqueline (Goddet) and Louis Stone, a stockbroker. His American father was from a Jewish family (from Germany and Eastern Europe), and his mother, a war bride, was French (and Catholic). After dropping out of Yale University, he became a soldier in the Vietnam War. Serving in two different regiments (including 1rst Cavalry), he was introduced to The Doors, drugs, Jefferson Airplane, and other things that defined the sixties. For his actions in the war, he was awarded a Bronze Star for Gallantry and a Purple Heart. Returning from the war, Stone did not return to graduate from Yale. His first film was a student film entitled Last Year in Viet Nam (1971), followed by the gritty horror film Seizure (1974) for which he also wrote the screenplay. The next seven years saw him direct two films: Mad Man of Martinique (1979) and The Hand (1981), starring Michael Caine. He also wrote many screenplays for films such as Midnight Express (1978), Conan the Barbarian (1982), and Scarface (1983). Stone won his first Oscar for Midnight Express (1978), but his fame was just beginning to show.
1986 was the year that brought him much fame to the U.S.A. and the world. He directed the political film Salvador (1986) starring Oscar-nominated James Woods. However, his big hit was the Vietnam war film Platoon (1986) starring Charlie Sheen,Willem Dafoe, Tom Berenger, and Francesco Quinn. Berenger and Dafoe received Oscar nominations for their roles as the polar opposite sergeants who each influence the tour of duty of Chris Taylor (Sheen). Stone won his first Oscar for directing this film, which won Best Picture and was a hit at the box office. After Platoon (1986), Stone followed up with the critically acclaimed Wall Street (1987). The movie, starring Charlie Sheen and Michael Douglas, focuses on the business world of tycoons and stock brokers. The film was well received and won an Oscar for Douglas' portrayal of the villainous Gordon Gekko. Stone returned immediately the following year with Talk Radio (1988), which talked of a foul-mouthed radio host (played by Eric Bogosian) who never fails to talk about the serious issues. Although it was not as successful as his last three films, Stone did not slow down at all. He directed Tom Cruise into an Oscar-nominated role in Born on the Fourth of July (1989).
The movie talked about the return of an embittered, crippled Vietnam soldier from the war. Although it failed to win Best Picture or Best Actor, Oliver Stone won an Academy Award for Directing, his third win to date. After Born on the Fourth of July (1989), Stone took a hand in producing several movies, including the Academy Award-winning film Reversal of Fortune (1990). He returned to the director's chair in 1991, once again with two films. Val Kilmer starred as the legendary and controversial Jim Morrison in Stone's psychedelic film The Doors (1991).
Despised by former Doors member Ray Manzarek, the film is nevertheless a wonderful achievement, with Kilmer pulling off an almost flawless impersonation of Morrison. Regardless of opinion, The Doors (1991) was overshadowed by Stone's colossal film JFK (1991), which Stone himself considers the best of his films. In Stone's movie, Jim Garrison tackles the conspiracy behind the murder of America's president John F. Kennedy. The large cast featured such well-known names as Kevin Costner, Tommy Lee Jones, John Candy, Joe Pesci, Donald Sutherland, and Walter Matthau. This film represented a change in Stone's works, because it was with this film that he really began to explore the different camera styles and combining them together to create a multi-dimensional way of showing a movie. JFK (1991), as with Platoon (1986) and Born on the Fourth of July (1989), earned eight Oscar nominations and was one of Stone's most successful films. However, he failed to win a third Oscar for Best Director.
After this film, Stone directed his third Vietnam film to date. Heaven & Earth (1993) was a film about the war from the viewpoint of a Vietnamese girl, and also co-starred Tommy Lee Jones (who had received an Oscar nomination for JFK (1991)). Despite its new woman's perspective and several positive reviews, it was a box office failure. Stone was unfazed; his next film is perhaps his most notorious film to date. Adapting a screenplay by Quentin Tarantino, Stone made Natural Born Killers (1994) starring Woody Harrelson, Juliette Lewis, Tom Sizemore and Rodney Dangerfield in his only dramatic performance. The film was received well at the box office, while review were very mixed. Because of the violence that people claimed was inspired by the film, it was compared to Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange (1971). As usual, Stone was at the center of controversial subjects; his next film Nixon (1995) was no exception. The film focused on the life of President Richard Nixon, played by Anthony Hopkins, while featuring another well-known cast, including Joan Allen in the role of Nixon's wife. Both went on to receive Oscar nominations, while Stone received his sixth Oscar nomination for Screenwriting. The film got mixed reviews, and failed to recoup its budget.
Aside from directing, Stone has worked as a producer on several different films. There was, of course, the successful film Reversal of Fortune (1990), which won Jeremy Irons an Oscar and also nominated the director for an Oscar. There was also the highly praised and successful emotional drama The Joy Luck Club (1993) which centered around four Chinese immigrant women whose relationships with their daughters is affected by their own lives. Another highly praised Oscar nominated film was Milos Forman's classic film The People vs. Larry Flynt (1996) starring Woody Harrelson, Edward Norton, and Courtney Love. Whether the crime/action film The Corruptor (1999) or the brilliant war epic Savior (1998), Stone has worked in a variety of film genres.
Stone had directed ten films in nine years; now however, he began to slow down. He directed the film U Turn (1997) starring Sean Penn and Jennifer Lopez. As with Natural Born Killers (1994), it was a dark and twisted satire on violence, but did not have the same success as the former. Stone was set to direct several projects in the late 90's but they fell through and were not made. However, success came back to Stone in the Al Pacino film Any Given Sunday (1999). This sports movie centered on the life behind the game of football, and it starred an impressive cast that included frequent Stone collaborators James Woods and John C. McGinley. This film was one of his most successful box office films, and put him back on track.
The following years brought Stone no new theatrical films, though he did make three fascinating TV documentaries. Two of them, 'Looking for Fidel' and Comandante (2003) were interviews of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, while 'Persona Non Grata' was an interview of several Palestinian leaders. Stone was also set to direct American Psycho (2000) with Leonardo DiCaprio and Beyond Borders (2003), starring Angelina Jolie and at the time, Ralph Fiennes. However, Stone dropped out of both projects, as did a number of the actors mentioned. Finally, five years after Any Given Sunday (1999), Stone directed a film he'd long wanted to make; the colossal epic Alexander (2004). Starring Colin Farrell as the Macedonian leader, Stone attempted to capture the essence of Alexander the Great through his conquests of the known world. The film focused on Alexander's relationships with his parents (a brilliant performance by Val Kilmer and a less impressive one by Angelina Jolie) and his relationships with his wife and childhood friend/ gay lover (played by Rosario Dawson and Jared Leto respectively).
Alexander (2004) was a critical failure, and failed to win back its budget domestically. Despite being one of 2004's highest grossing films internationally, and recouping its budget through DVD sales, Stone's pet project was heavily criticized. Despite a far superior version (Alexander Revisited) being released on DVD, the film's reputation remains low by the majority. Stone was personally stung at these attacks, but managed to rebound, if mildly, with his hopeful film World Trade Center (2006). The film centers on two firefighters trapped in the rubble of the twin towers. It received good reviews, and allowed Oliver to step forward from his failure towards the possibility of more films.
In late 2007, besides a number of projects Stone was set to direct "Pinkville", which would have been his fourth Vietnam film to date. It was set to star a large number of well known actors such as Bruce Willis, Toby Jones, Channing Tatum, Michael Pitt, Woody Harrelson, and Michael Peña. However, a week before shooting was to begin, the Writer's Strike was started, and the finance for the film was cut, using the strike as an excuse. After Willis backed out of the project, it was eventually scuttled, much like Stone's early productions of Platoon (1986) and Born on the Fourth of July (1989). Stone turned to another project he had worked on with former Wall Street (1987) collaborator Stanley Weiser. The project was W. (2008), a biography on president George W. Bush. Stone initially cast Christian Bale in the role of Bush but the actor dropped out at the last minute. Josh Brolin was cast, and this followed with a large cast of well known Oscar nominated character actors such as Richard Dreyfuss, James Cromwell, and Ellen Burstyn. The film was made in a record four months, starting in June and released in October. The film opened to mixed reviews, and though film's budget was recouped, it was not a financial hit.
Stone then made the documentary South of the Border (2009), a documentary which focused on bringing to light the positive aspects of the left-wing governments in South America, particularly Hugo Chavez in Venezuela. Stone was much less critical than usual, instead making the documentary as a response to the harsh reputation that Chavez has in the States. The documentary was poorly received in the States. Stone also began work on Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (2010). Starring Michael Douglas, Shia LaBeouf, Josh Brolin, Carey Mulligan, and Eli Wallach, the film focuses on the 2008 economic crisis, and the return of Gordon Gekko from prison. The film was screened at Cannes to positive reception, and hailed as Stone's triumphant return. After this, Stone made a film adaptation of "Savages", a novel by Don Winslow . The movie follows two highly successful marijuana growers (Taylor Kitsch and Aaron Taylor-Johnson ), whose shared girlfriend (Blake Lively) is kidnapped by a Mexican cartel and held for ransom. The movie also starred Salma Hayek, Benicio Del Toro, John Travolta, and Emile Hirsch. The film was a return to the tense action and violence of Stone's earlier films, though it polarized many audience members due to the colorful narrations of Lively's vapid and naive character, as well as the film's ending.
After completing the ambitious and well-received television project The Untold History of the United States (2012), as well as a documentary on Hugo Chavez, Stone finally returned to feature films with Snowden (2016). Based on the life of American whistle blower Edward Snowden, Stone's film depicted his awakening to the truth behind the massive surveillances conducted by the NSA, and his attempt to warn the general public of what they did not know. The film was done independently, financed by Europeans on a low budget. It was also a return to form for Stone in a way that had not been seen since "Alexander". Joseph Gordon-Levitt, delivered a very strong performance as Snowden, with the supporting cast including Shailene Woodley, Rhys Ifans, Melissa Leo, Timothy Olyphant, and Nicolas Cage. Sadly, the film received a mixed response from critics, and was a box office disappointment.
Since then, Stone has returned to television for his next two projects. One is a series of interviews with Russian leader Vladimir Putin, and the other is directing a new fictional series based on the abusive Guantanamo prison. It will be his first venture into fictional television.
Oliver Stone is a three-time Oscar winner, and although he has mostly been stung by critics of his films, he remains a well-known name today in the film industry. The films he directed have been nominated for 31 Academy Awards, including eight for acting, six for screen writing, and three for directing. There is no denying that Stone has cemented himself a position among the legends of Hollywood.- Producer
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- Writer
Francis Ford Coppola was born in 1939 in Detroit, Michigan, but grew up in a New York suburb in a creative, supportive Italian-American family. His father, Carmine Coppola, was a composer and musician. His mother, Italia Coppola (née Pennino), had been an actress. Francis Ford Coppola graduated with a degree in drama from Hofstra University, and did graduate work at UCLA in filmmaking. He was training as assistant with filmmaker Roger Corman, working in such capacities as sound-man, dialogue director, associate producer and, eventually, director of Dementia 13 (1963), Coppola's first feature film. During the next four years, Coppola was involved in a variety of script collaborations, including writing an adaptation of "This Property is Condemned" by Tennessee Williams (with Fred Coe and Edith Sommer), and screenplays for Is Paris Burning? (1966) and Patton (1970), the film for which Coppola won a Best Original Screenplay Academy Award. In 1966, Coppola's 2nd film brought him critical acclaim and a Master of Fine Arts degree. In 1969, Coppola and George Lucas established American Zoetrope, an independent film production company based in San Francisco. The company's first project was THX 1138 (1971), produced by Coppola and directed by Lucas. Coppola also produced the second film that Lucas directed, American Graffiti (1973), in 1973. This movie got five Academy Award nominations, including one for Best Picture. In 1971, Coppola's film The Godfather (1972) became one of the highest-grossing movies in history and brought him an Oscar for writing the screenplay with Mario Puzo The film was a Best Picture Academy Award-winner, and also brought Coppola a Best Director Oscar nomination. Following his work on the screenplay for The Great Gatsby (1974), Coppola's next film was The Conversation (1974), which was honored with the Golden Palm Award at the Cannes Film Festival, and brought Coppola Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay Oscar nominations. Also released that year, The Godfather Part II (1974), rivaled the success of The Godfather (1972), and won six Academy Awards, bringing Coppola Oscars as a producer, director and writer. Coppola then began work on his most ambitious film, Apocalypse Now (1979), a Vietnam War epic that was inspired by Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness (1993). Released in 1979, the acclaimed film won a Golden Palm Award at the Cannes Film Festival, and two Academy Awards. Also that year, Coppola executive produced the hit The Black Stallion (1979). With George Lucas, Coppola executive produced Kagemusha: The Shadow Warrior (1980), directed by Akira Kurosawa, and Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (1985), directed by Paul Schrader and based on the life and writings of Yukio Mishima. Coppola also executive produced such films as The Escape Artist (1982), Hammett (1982) The Black Stallion Returns (1983), Barfly (1987), Wind (1992), The Secret Garden (1993), etc.
He helped to make a star of his nephew, Nicolas Cage. Personal tragedy hit in 1986 when his son Gio died in a boating accident. Francis Ford Coppola is one of America's most erratic, energetic and controversial filmmakers.- Writer
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- Actor
Quentin Jerome Tarantino was born in Knoxville, Tennessee. His father, Tony Tarantino, is an Italian-American actor and musician from New York, and his mother, Connie (McHugh), is a nurse from Tennessee. Quentin moved with his mother to Torrance, California, when he was four years old.
In January of 1992, first-time writer-director Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs (1992) appeared at the Sundance Film Festival. The film garnered critical acclaim and the director became a legend immediately. Two years later, he followed up Dogs success with Pulp Fiction (1994) which premiered at the Cannes film festival, winning the coveted Palme D'Or Award. At the 1995 Academy Awards, it was nominated for the best picture, best director and best original screenplay. Tarantino and writing partner Roger Avary came away with the award only for best original screenplay. In 1995, Tarantino directed one fourth of the anthology Four Rooms (1995) with friends and fellow auteurs Alexandre Rockwell, Robert Rodriguez and Allison Anders. The film opened December 25 in the United States to very weak reviews. Tarantino's next film was From Dusk Till Dawn (1996), a vampire/crime story which he wrote and co-starred with George Clooney. The film did fairly well theatrically.
Since then, Tarantino has helmed several critically and financially successful films, including Jackie Brown (1997), Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003), Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004), Inglourious Basterds (2009), Django Unchained (2012) and The Hateful Eight (2015).- Writer
- Producer
- Director
James Francis Cameron was born on August 16, 1954 in Kapuskasing, Ontario, Canada. He moved to the United States in 1971. The son of an engineer, he majored in physics at California State University before switching to English, and eventually dropping out. He then drove a truck to support his screenwriting ambition. He landed his first professional film job as art director, miniature-set builder, and process-projection supervisor on Roger Corman's Battle Beyond the Stars (1980) and had his first experience as a director with a two week stint on Piranha II: The Spawning (1982) before being fired.
He then wrote and directed The Terminator (1984), a futuristic action-thriller starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Michael Biehn and Linda Hamilton. It was a low budget independent film, but Cameron's superb, dynamic direction made it a surprise mainstream success and it is now regarded as one of the most iconic pictures of the 1980s. After this came a string of successful, bigger budget science-fiction action films such as Aliens (1986), The Abyss (1989) and Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991). In 1990, Cameron formed his own production company, Lightstorm Entertainment. In 1997, he wrote and directed Titanic (1997), a romance epic about two young lovers from different social classes who meet on board the famous ship. The movie went on to break all box office records and earned eleven Academy Awards. It became the highest grossing movie of all time until 12 years later, Avatar (2009), which invented and pioneered 3D film technology, and it went on to beat "Titanic", and became the first film to cost two billion dollars until 2019 when Marvel took the record.
James Cameron is now one of the most sought-after directors in Hollywood. He was formerly married to producer Gale Anne Hurd, who produced several of his films. In 2000, he married actress Suzy Amis, who appeared in Titanic, and they have three children.- Writer
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- Director
Roland Emmerich is a German film director and producer of blockbuster films like The Day After Tomorrow (2004), Godzilla (1998), Independence Day (1996) and The Patriot (2000). Before fame, he originally wanted to be a production designer, but decided to be a director, after watching the original Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977). Emmerich began his career in his native Germany. In his youth, he pursued painting and sculpting. While enrolled in the director's program at film school in Munich, his student film The Noah's Ark Principle (1984) went on to open the 1984 Berlin Film Festival. The feature became a huge success and was sold to more than 20 countries. In an amazing trivia, he directed his first feature, The Noah's Ark Principle (1984), in 1984. He is openly gay and a campaigner for the LGBT community.
A director/writer/producer with a flair for special effects-driven action, German Roland Emmerich made himself at home in blockbuster-hungry 1990s Hollywood. Born and educated in West Germany, Emmerich studied production design as well as direction at the Munich Film and Television School. After his student film, The Noah's Ark Principle, debuted at the 1984 Berlin Film Festival, Emmerich formed his production company Centropolis and directed supernatural fantasies Making Contact (1986) and Ghost Chase (1987), and the straight-to-video action film Moon 44 (1990). On the latter, he met actor Dean Devlin who subsequently switched jobs to become Emmerich's writing and producing partner once Emmerich set up shop in Hollywood.
After making his solo Hollywood debut directing Jean-Claude Van Damme in the cyborg action fest Universal Soldier (1992), Emmerich and Devlin revealed a talent for conjuring A-level action spectacles out of B-movie scenarios with their first film together, Stargate (1994). A space odyssey mixing ancient Egyptiana and high-tech wizardry, Stargate became an unexpected hit. Emmerich hit his blockbuster stride with his next film, Independence Day (1996). With its eye-popping destruction of major cities and climactic annihilation of a spacecraft via portable computer, Independence Day blew away its summer movie competition on the strength of its visual flash. Geared to repeat with the endlessly- and creatively-hyped version of Godzilla (1998), Emmerich instead faced the conundrum of directing a $100 million grossing film that did not live up to box office expectations. Emmerich and Devlin next turned their epic visions to the decidedly lower-tech (but still CGI-enhanced) action of the American Revolution in the Mel Gibson summer vehicle The Patriot (2000).- Producer
- Director
- Production Designer
Described by film producer Michael Deeley as "the very best eye in the business", director Ridley Scott was born on November 30, 1937 in South Shields, Tyne and Wear. His father was an officer in the Royal Engineers and the family followed him as his career posted him throughout the United Kingdom and Europe before they eventually returned to Teesside. Scott wanted to join the British Army (his elder brother Frank had already joined the Merchant Navy) but his father encouraged him to develop his artistic talents instead and so he went to West Hartlepool College of Art and then London's Royal College of Art where he helped found the film department.
In 1962, he joined the BBC as a trainee set designer working on several high profile series. He attended a trainee director's course while he was there and his first directing job was on an episode of the popular BBC police series Z Cars (1962), Error of Judgement (1965). More TV work followed until, frustrated by the poor financial rewards at the BBC, he went into advertising. With his younger brother, Tony Scott, he formed the advertising production company RSA (Ridley Scott Associates) in 1967 and spent the next 10 years making some of the best known and best loved TV adverts ever shown on British television, including a series of ads for Hovis bread set to the music of Dvorak's New World Symphony which are still talked about today ("'e were a great baker were our dad.")
He began working with producer David Puttnam in the 1970s developing ideas for feature films. Their first joint endeavor, The Duellists (1977) won the Jury Prize for Best First Work at Cannes in 1977 and was nominated for the Palm d'Or, more than successfully launching Scott's feature film career. The success of Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977) inspired Scott's interest in making science fiction and he accepted the offer to direct Dan O'Bannon's low budget science fiction horror movie Alien (1979), a critical and commercial success that firmly established his worldwide reputation as a movie director.
Blade Runner (1982) followed in 1982 to, at best, a lukewarm reception from public and critics but in the years that followed, its reputation grew - and Scott's with it - as one of the most important sci-fi movies ever made. Scott's next major project was back in the advertising world where he created another of the most talked-about advertising spots in broadcast history when his "1984"-inspired ad for the new Apple Macintosh computer was aired during the Super Bowl on January 22, 1984. Scott's movie career has seen a few flops (notably Legend (1985) and 1492: Conquest of Paradise (1992)), but with successes like Thelma & Louise (1991), Gladiator (2000) and Black Hawk Down (2001) to offset them, his reputation remains solidly intact.
Ridley Scott was awarded Knight Bachelor of the Order of the British Empire at the 2003 Queen's New Year Honours for his "substantial contribution to the British film industry". On July 3, 2015, he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Royal College of Art in a ceremony at the Royal Albert Hall in London. He was awarded the BAFTA Fellowship in 2018. BAFTA described him as "a visionary director, one of the great British film-makers whose work has made an indelible mark on the history of cinema. Forty years since his directorial debut, his films continue to cross the boundaries of style and genre, engaging audiences and inspiring the next generation of film talent."- Producer
- Director
- Actor
Tony Scott was a British-born film director and producer. He was the youngest of three brothers, one of whom is fellow film director Ridley Scott. He was born in North Shields, Northumberland, England to parents Jean and Colonel Francis Percy Scott. As a result of his father's career in the British military, his family moved around a lot. Their mother loved the going to the movies and instilled a love of cinema in her children. At age 16, Tony made his first appearance on screen as 'the boy' in his brother's directorial debut, the short film Boy and Bicycle (1965). In 1969, Tony directed his own short film One of the Missing (1969) about a soldier in the American civil war.
Tony had a talent for art and painting. He spent a year in Leeds College of Art and Design and went on to study for a fine arts degree at the School of Art at the University of Sunderland. He won a scholarship to study for his Masters of fine arts at the Royal College of Art. Following university, he spent several years as a painter. But life as a painter proved a struggle, so he decided to forge a different career path and partnered with Ridley in advertising at Ridley Scott Associates. It was there that he began shooting commercials. In 1971 he wrote, produced and directed Loving Memory however his vampire movie The Hunger (1983) starring Susan Sarandon, David Bowie and Catherine Deneuve wasn't a critical success but it attracted attention from Hollywood. He was asked by producers Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer to direct Top Gun (1986) starring Tom Cruise. He would work again with Cruise on another high adrenaline film Days of Thunder (1990), which proved less successful. He followed the success of Top Gun with the sequel Beverly Hills Cop II (1987) with Eddie Murphy, which was well received.
In 1993, he directed True Romance (1993), which was written by emerging director Quentin Tarantino. Scott had a lot of control over the film and received some great reviews.
Tony has worked five times with actor Denzel Washington with Crimson Tide (1995), The Taking of Pelham 123 (2009), Deja Vu (2006), Man on Fire (2004) and Scott's final film in the director's chair Unstoppable (2010).
Tony Scott passed away at age 68 on August 19, 2012 in California, USA.- Music Department
- Writer
- Composer
John Howard Carpenter was born in Carthage, New York, to mother Milton Jean (Carter) and father Howard Ralph Carpenter. His family moved to Bowling Green, Kentucky, where his father, a professor, was head of the music department at Western Kentucky University. He attended Western Kentucky University and then USC film school in Los Angeles. He began making short films in 1962, and won an Academy Award for Best Live-Action Short Subject in 1970, for The Resurrection of Broncho Billy (1970), which he made while at USC. Carpenter formed a band in the mid-1970s called The Coupe de Villes, which included future directors Tommy Lee Wallace and Nick Castle. Since the 1970s, he has had numerous roles in the film industry including writer, actor, composer, producer, and director. After directing Dark Star (1974), he has helmed both classic horror films like Halloween (1978), The Fog (1980), and The Thing (1982), and noted sci-fi tales like Escape from New York (1981) and Starman (1984).- Writer
- Producer
- Director
John Milius is a screenwriter and director who came to prominence in the 1970s, when he was associated with Francis Ford Coppola and the pre-Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977) George Lucas. Born on April 11, 1944 in St. Louis, Missouri, Milius was one of the first movie industry professionals to be a film school graduate, having matriculated at the University of Southern California. In 1967, Milius won first prize at USC School of Cinema-for his student film Marcello, I'm Bored (1970).
A gun enthusiast, Milius serves as a member of the National Rifle Association's Board of Directors.- Producer
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- Director
Born in Pennsylvania and raised in Ohio, Chris Columbus was first inspired to make movies after seeing "The Godfather" at age 15. After enrolling at NYU film school, he sold his first screenplay (never produced) while a sophomore there. After graduation Columbus tried to sell his fourth script, "Gremlins", with no success, until Steven Spielberg optioned it; Columbus moved to Los Angeles for a year during rewrites on the project in Spielberg's bungalow at Universal. After writing two more scripts for Spielberg, "The Goonies" and "Young Sherlock Holmes", Columbus' own directing career was launched a few years later with "Adventures in Babysitting". He is best known to audiences as the director of the runaway hit "Home Alone", written and produced by John Hughes its sequel "Home Alone 2", and most recently "Mrs. Doubtfire".- Producer
- Additional Crew
- Director
Canadian producer and director Ivan Reitman created many of American cinema's most successful and best loved feature film comedies and worked with Hollywood's acting elite. Reitman produced such hits as the ground-breaking sensation National Lampoon's National Lampoon's Animal House (1978), which introduced John Belushi to American filmgoers, and the family features Beethoven (1992) and Beethoven's 2nd (1993). His directing credits include Meatballs (1979), Stripes (1981) and Ghostbusters (1984), films starring Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis; Dave (1993), which starred Kevin Kline and Sigourney Weaver, Junior (1994) which starred Arnold Schwarzenegger, Danny DeVito and Emma Thompson. Reitman also produced the HBO telefilm The Late Shift (1996), based on Bill Carter's non-fiction book about the late-night television wars which received seven Emmy nominations. Other producing endeavors include Commandments (1997), starring Aidan Quinn and Courteney Cox, Private Parts (1997), starring Howard Stern, as well as the animation/live action film Space Jam (1996), starring Michael Jordan and the Looney Tunes characters. With Twins (1988), Reitman created an entirely new comedic persona for action hero Arnold Schwarzenegger -- and forged a personal and professional relationship that continued with Kindergarten Cop (1990) and Junior (1994). Acclaimed dramatic actors such as Robert Redford, Debra Winger, Sigourney Weaver, and Emma Thompson also revealed untapped comic talents under Reitman's direction. In 1984, Reitman was honored as Director of the Year by the National Association of Theater Owners and the next year received a Special Achievement Award at the Canadian Genie awards. In 1979 and again in 1989, for the films National Lampoon's Animal House (1978) and Twins (1988), Reitman was honored with the People's Choice Award. In November of 1994, Reitman became the third director honored by Variety magazine in a special Billion Dollar Director issue.
Reitman was born in Czechoslovakia, to Jewish Holocaust survivors, and left with his family for Canada at the age of four. He attended Canada's McMaster University, where he produced and directed several television shorts. He followed with a live television show, Greed: The Series (1999), with Dan Aykroyd as its announcer. "Spellbound," which Reitman produced for the live stage, evolved into the Broadway hit "The Magic Show," starring Doug Henning. He continued producing for the stage with the Off-Broadway hit "The National Lampoon Show," and returned to Broadway to produce and direct the musical "Merlin," earning a Tony nomination for directing. Reitman headed The Montecito Picture Company, a film and television production company, with partner Tom Pollock. His television credits included the Emmy-nominated children's show The Real Ghostbusters (1986) and the Saturday morning animated series Beethoven (1994) for CBS. His last directing credited was Draft Day (2014), before his death in February 2022 in Montecito, California.- Producer
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- Director
The younger brother of Joel, Ethan Coen is an Academy Award and Golden Globe winning writer, producer and director coming from small independent films to big profile Hollywood films. He was born on September 21, 1957 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. In some films of the brothers- Ethan & Joel wrote, Joel directed and Ethan produced - with both editing under the name of Roderick Jaynes; but in 2004 they started to share the three main duties plus editing. Each film bring its own quality, creativity, art and with one project more daring the other.
His film debut was in 1984 dark humored thriller Blood Simple (1984) starring Frances McDormand (Joel's wife) and M. Emmet Walsh in a deep story revolving a couple of romantic lovers followed by an insisting private eye. The film received critical acclaim, some award nominations to Ethan (best writing at the Film Independent Spirit Awards) and became a cult following over the years. Their second work was the comedy Raising Arizona (1987) starring Nicolas Cage and Holly Hunter as a unusual couple trying to create their family by kidnapping babies from a rich family.
Miller's Crossing (1990) was the third film of the brothers, a mob drama with heavy influences from several criminal dramas and with a stellar cast that included Gabriel Byrne, Marcia Gay Harden, Albert Finney, Steve Buscemi, John Turturro and Jon Polito (the latter three would become regular actors in the Coen's films).
Their views on the Hollywood era of the 1930's was the central theme is the great Barton Fink (1991), created from a writers block both brothers suffered during the making of their previous film. John Turturro stars as a writer who suffers from a breakdown when he's commissioned to a big budget Hollywood project. The film was a breakthrough for the Coens marking their first win at the Cannes Film Festival (Joel got the Palme d'Or) and the first time a film of their received Oscar nominations. The underrated comedy The Hudsucker Proxy (1994) was what followed; but no one could predict their next big and boldest move that would definitely put Ethan and Joel on the spotlight once and for all.
The comedy of errors Fargo (1996) was a huge critical and commercial success. With its crazed story of a man who hires two loonies to kidnap his own wife and a pregnant policewoman tracking the leads to the crime, Ethan and Joel came at their greatest moment that couldn't be missed. The film received several awards during award season and the Coen's got their first Oscar in the Best Original Screenplay category. What came next was the underrated yet hilariously good The Big Lebowski (1998) starring Jeff Bridges, John Goodman, John Turturro and Steve Buscemi. Those masterpieces made their career in the late 1990's cementing the duo as one of the greatest writers and directors of their generation, if not, from all time.
The Odyssey retold for the 1930's in O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000); the intelligent noir The Man Who Wasn't There (2001); the comedy Intolerable Cruelty (2003) and a remake The Ladykillers (2004) marked their way into the early 2000's. Certaintly of period of minor hits and some downer moments.
The big return was with the highly acclaimed No Country for Old Men (2007), where the brothers swooped at the Oscars with three wins: Best Picture, Screenplay and Writing, an adaptation from the Cormac McCarthy's novel.
A Serious Man (2009), Burn After Reading (2008), True Grit (2010), Inside Llewyn Davis (2013), Hail, Caesar! (2016) and The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018) were the subsequent films, all well received by audiences or got awards recognition, mostly nominations.
A shift from tone and career move was writing with other writers and for another directors: for Angelina Jolie's Unbroken (2014), for Spielberg in Bridge of Spies (2015) and George Clooney in Suburbicon (2017).
As for personal life, Ethan has been married to Tricia Cooke since 1990. Tricia works as an assistant editor in several of the Coen brothers films.- Producer
- Writer
- Director
Joel Daniel Coen is an American filmmaker who regularly collaborates with his younger brother Ethan. They made Raising Arizona, Barton Fink, Fargo, The Big Lebowski, True Grit, O Brother Where Art Thou?, Burn After Reading, A Serious Man, Inside Llewyn Davis, Hail Caesar and other projects. Joel married actress Frances McDormand in 1984 and had an adopted son.- Director
- Producer
- Actor
Richard Donner was born on 24 April 1930 in The Bronx, New York City, New York, USA. He was a director and producer, known for Superman (1978), Ladyhawke (1985) and Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut (1980). He was married to Lauren Shuler Donner. He died on 5 July 2021 in Los Angeles, California, USA.- Producer
- Writer
- Director
A whiz-kid with special effects, Robert is from the Spielberg camp of film-making (Steven Spielberg produced many of his films). Usually working with writing partner Bob Gale, Robert's earlier films show he has a talent for zany comedy (Romancing the Stone (1984), 1941 (1979)) and special effect vehicles (Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) and Back to the Future (1985)). His later films have become more serious, with the hugely successful Tom Hanks vehicle Forrest Gump (1994) and the Jodie Foster film Contact (1997), both critically acclaimed movies. Again, these films incorporate stunning effects. Robert has proved he can work a serious story around great effects.- Director
- Editor
- Producer
John G. Avildsen was born on 21 December 1935 in Oak Park, Illinois, USA. He was a director and editor, known for Rocky (1976), The Karate Kid Part III (1989) and Rocky V (1990). He was married to Tracy Brooks Swope and Marie Olga Maturevich. He died on 16 June 2017 in Los Angeles, California, USA.- Writer
- Director
- Producer
Phil Alden Robinson was born on 1 March 1950 in Long Beach, Long Island, New York, USA. He is a writer and director, known for Field of Dreams (1989), Sneakers (1992) and The Sum of All Fears (2002). He has been married to Paulette Bartlett since 26 September 2009.- Actor
- Writer
- Producer
Robert Reiner was born in New York City, to Estelle Reiner (née Lebost) and Emmy-winning actor, comedian, writer, and producer Carl Reiner.
As a child, his father was his role model, as Carl Reiner created and starred in The Dick Van Dyke Show. Estelle was also an inspiration for him to become a director; her experience as a singer helped him understand how music was used in a scene. Rob often felt pressured about measuring up to his father's successful streak, with twelve Emmys and other prestigious awards.
When Rob graduated high school, his parents advised him to participate in Summer Theatre. Reiner got a job as an apprentice in the Bucks County Playhouse in Pennsylvania. He went on to UCLA Film School to further his education. Reiner felt he still wasn't successful even having a recurring role on one of the biggest shows in the country, All in the Family. He began his directing career with the Oscar-nominated films This Is Spinal Tap, Stand By Me, and The Princess Bride.
In 1987, with these successful box-office movies under his belt, Reiner founded his own production company, Castle Rock Entertainment; along with Martin Shafer, Andrew Scheinman, Glenn Padnick, and Alan Horn. Under Castle Rock Entertainment, he went to direct Oscar-nominated films When Harry Met Sally, Misery, and A Few Good Men. Reiner has credited former co-star Carroll O'Connor in helping him get into the directing business, showing Reiner the ropes.
Reiner is known as a political activist, co-founding the American Foundation For Equal Rights, a group that was an advisory for same-sex-marriage. He has spoken at several rallies on several topics, an advocate for social change regarding such issues as domestic violence and tobacco use.
Reiner made cameo appearances on television shows 30 Rock, The Simpsons, and Hannah Montana, and in films The First Wives Club, Bullets Over Broadway, Primary Colors, and Throw Momma From The Train, among many others.- Director
- Producer
- Actor
Sydney Pollack was an Academy Award-winning director, producer, actor, writer and public figure, who directed and produced over 40 films.
Sydney Irwin Pollack was born July 1, 1934 in Lafayette, Indiana, USA, to Rebecca (Miller), a homemaker, and David Pollack, a professional boxer turned pharmacist. All of his grandparents were Russian Jewish immigrants. His parents divorced when he was young. His mother, an alcoholic, died at age 37, when Sydney was 16. He spent his formative years in Indiana, graduating from his HS in 1952, then moved to New York City.
From 1952-1954 young Pollack studied acting with Sanford Meisner at The Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre in New York. He served two years in the army, and then returned to the Neighborhood Playhouse and taught acting. In 1958, Pollack married his former student Claire Griswold. They had three children. Their son, Steven Pollack, died in a plane crash on November 26, 1993, in Santa Monica, California. Their daughter, Rebecca Pollack, served as vice president of film production at United Artists during the 1990s. Their youngest daughter, Rachel Pollack, was born in 1969.
Pollack began his acting career on stage, then made his name as television director in the early 1960s. He made his big screen acting debut in War Hunt (1962), where he met fellow actor Robert Redford, and the two co-stars established a life-long friendship. Pollack called on his good friend Redford to play opposite Natalie Wood in This Property Is Condemned (1966). Pollack and Redford worked together on six more films over the years. His biggest success came with Out of Africa (1985), starring Robert Redford and Meryl Streep. The movie earned eleven Academy Award nominations in all and seven wins, including Pollack's two Oscars: one for Best Direction and one for Best Picture.
Pollack showed his best as a comedy director and actor in Tootsie (1982), where he brought feminist issues to public awareness using his remarkable wit and wisdom, and created a highly entertaining film, which was nominated for ten Academy Awards. Pollack's directing revealed Dustin Hoffman's range and nuanced acting in gender switching from a dominant boyfriend to a nurse in drag, a brilliant collaboration of director and actor that broadened public perception about sex roles. Pollack also made success in producing such films as The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), The Quiet American (2002) and Cold Mountain (2003). Pollack returned to the director's chair in 2004, when he directed The Interpreter (2005), the first film ever shot on location at the United Nations Headquarters and within the General Assembly in New York City.
In 2000, Sydney Pollack was honored with the John Huston Award from the Directors Guild of America as a "defender of artists' rights." He died from cancer on May 26, 2008, at his home in the Los Angeles suburb of Pacific Palisades, California.- Director
- Producer
- Actor
English-born "Army brat" John Badham is the son of English actress Mary Hewitt and the stepson of an American Army general. Raised in Alabama and schooled at Yale, he cut his teeth producing and directing for TV before making his feature debut with The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars & Motor Kings (1976). Badham's breakthrough credit was the box office smash Saturday Night Fever (1977), made the following year; other hits on his resume include Blue Thunder (1983), WarGames (1983), and Short Circuit (1986).- Writer
- Director
- Producer
Guy Ritchie was born in Hatfield, Hertfordshire, UK on September 10, 1968. After watching Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) as a child, Guy realized that what he wanted to do was make films. He never attended film school, saying that the work of film school graduates was boring and unwatchable. At 15 years old, he dropped out of school and in 1995, got a job as a runner, ultimately starting his film career. He quickly progressed and was directing music promos for bands and commercials by 1995.
The profits that he made from directing these promos was invested into writing and making the film The Hard Case (1995), a 20-minute short film that is also the prequel to his debut feature Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998). Sting's wife, Trudie Styler, saw The Hard Case (1995) and invested in the feature film. Once completed, 10 British distributors turned the film down before it eventually was released in the UK in 1998 and in the US in 1999; the film put Ritchie on the map as one of the hottest rising filmmakers of the time, and launched the careers of actors Jason Statham, Jason Flemyng, and Vinnie Jones, among others.
Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998) was followed by Snatch (2000), this time with a bigger budget and a few more familiar faces such as Brad Pitt, Dennis Farina, Benicio Del Toro alongside returning actors Jason Statham, Vinnie Jones and Jason Flemyng. At the end of 2000, Ritchie married the pop superstar Madonna in Scotland, and proceeded to work with his famous wife on a variety of film and video projects, including the short Star (2001), made for BMW and co-starring Clive Owen, and the controversial video "What It Feels Like for a Girl," which was called out for its violence. In 2002, the couple embarked on a remake of the 1974 Lina Wertmüller film Swept Away (2002); the new film was a critical and commercial flop, winning five Razzie Awards. Ritchie followed up with the Vegas heist film Revolver (2005), which was panned, but won favor with the crime thriller RocknRolla (2008), which featured a game, energetic cast and brought American attention to rising stars Gerard Butler and Tom Hardy.
The next year saw the release of Sherlock Holmes (2009), starring Robert Downey Jr. in the title role and Jude Law as his cohort Dr. Watson. The film received mostly good reviews but, more important for Ritchie's career, was a solid blockbuster hit that grossed more than $520 million dollars worldwide and spawned a sequel, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011). Ritchie is tentatively scheduled to direct an adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island.
Ritchie has two sons with Madonna: Rocco, born in 2000, and an adopted son, David, born in 2005. In late 2008, the couple confirmed reports that they were splitting up, and agreed to a divorce settlement that was finalized in December of that year. In September 2011, Ritchie's girlfriend, model Jacqui Ainsley, gave birth to a son, Rafael, and in July 2012 the couple announced they were expecting their second child.- Director
- Writer
- Producer
Joel Schumacher was an American film director, film producer, screenwriter and fashion designer from New York City. He rose to fame in the 1980s for directing the coming-of-age drama "St. Elmo's Fire" (1985), and the vampire-themed horror film "The Lost Boys" (1987). In the 1990s, he worked on two controversial superhero films "Batman Forever" (1995) and "Batman & Robin" (1997). His final high-profile film was "The Phantom of the Opera" (2004). It was an adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber's 1986 musical, rather than the original novel. Towards the end of his career, Schumacher primarily worked on low-profile films with small budgets.- Producer
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Born in Puducherry, India, and raised in the posh suburban Penn Valley area of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, M. Night Shyamalan is a film director, screenwriter, producer, and occasional actor, known for making movies with contemporary supernatural plots.
He is the son of Jayalakshmi, a Tamil obstetrician and gynecologist, and Nelliate C. Shyamalan, a Malayali doctor. His passion for filmmaking began when he was given a Super-8 camera at age eight, and even at that young age began to model his career on that of his idol, Steven Spielberg. His first film, Praying with Anger (1992), was based somewhat on his own trip back to visit the India of his birth. He raised all the funds for this project, in addition to directing, producing and starring in it. Wide Awake (1998), his second film, he wrote and directed, and shot it in the Philadelphia-area Catholic school he once attended--even though his family was of a different religion, they sent him to that school because of its strict discipline.
Shyamalan gained international recognition when he wrote and directed 1999's The Sixth Sense (1999), which was a commercial success and later nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Original Screenplay. Shyamalan team up again with Bruce Willis in the film Unbreakable (2000), released in 2000, which he also wrote and directed.
His major films include the science fiction thriller Signs (2002), the psychological thriller The Village (2004), the fantasy thriller Lady in the Water (2006), The Happening (2008), The Last Airbender (2010), After Earth (2013), and the horror films The Visit (2015) and Split (2016).- Producer
- Writer
- Director
Zwick moves deftly between the roles of writer, director and producer. He was nominated for a Golden Globe for his direction of the 1989 critically acclaimed Civil War drama, Glory. He received his second Golden Globe nomination as a director for Legends of the Fall. Zwick received an Academy Award as one of the producers of Shakespeare in Love, as well as a second nomination for Traffic. He wrote, directed and produced the feature film The Last Samurai. Zwick continues to work with his partner, Marshall Herskovitz, at their company Bedford Falls where they created Thirtysomething, My So-Called Life, Once and Again and Blood Diamond.- Director
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- Actor
Barbet Schroeder was born on 26 August 1941 in Tehran, Iran. He is a director and producer, known for Our Lady of the Assassins (2000), Single White Female (1992) and Murder by Numbers (2002). He has been married to Bulle Ogier since April 1991.- Director
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Sidney Lumet was a master of cinema, best known for his technical knowledge and his skill at getting first-rate performances from his actors -- and for shooting most of his films in his beloved New York. He made over 40 movies, often complex and emotional, but seldom overly sentimental. Although his politics were somewhat left-leaning and he often treated socially relevant themes in his films, Lumet didn't want to make political movies in the first place. Born on June 25, 1924, in Philadelphia, the son of actor Baruch Lumet and dancer Eugenia Wermus Lumet, he made his stage debut at age four at the Yiddish Art Theater in New York. He played many roles on Broadway in the 1930s and also in the film ...One Third of a Nation... (1939). After starting an off-Broadway acting troupe in the late 1940s, he became the director of many television shows in the 1950s. Lumet made his feature film directing debut with 12 Angry Men (1957), which won the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival and earned three Academy Award nominations. The courtroom drama, which takes place almost entirely in a jury room, is justly regarded as one of the most auspicious directorial debuts in film history. Lumet got the chance to direct Marlon Brando in The Fugitive Kind (1960), an imperfect, but powerful adaptation of Tennessee Williams' "Orpheus Descending". The first half of the 1960s was one of Lumet's most artistically successful periods. Long Day's Journey Into Night (1962), a masterful, brilliantly photographed adaptation of the Eugene O'Neill play, is one of several Lumet films about families. It earned Katharine Hepburn, Ralph Richardson, Dean Stockwell and Jason Robards deserved acting awards in Cannes and Hepburn an Oscar nomination. The alarming Cold War thriller Fail Safe (1964) unfairly suffered from comparison to Stanley Kubrick's equally great satire Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964), which was released shortly before. The Pawnbroker (1964), arguably the most outstanding of the great movies Lumet made in this phase, tells the story of a Holocaust survivor who lives in New York and can't overcome his experiences in the Nazi concentration camps. Rod Steiger's unforgettable performance in the title role earned an Academy Award nomination. Lumet's intense character study The Hill (1965) about inhumanity in a military prison camp was the first of five films he did with Sean Connery. After the overly talky but rewarding drama The Group (1966) about young upper-class women in the 1930s, and the stylish spy thriller The Deadly Affair (1967), the late 1960s turned out to be a lesser phase in Lumet's career. He had a strong comeback with the box-office hit The Anderson Tapes (1971). The Offence (1973) was commercially less successful, but artistically brilliant - with Connery in one of his most impressive performances. The terrific cop thriller Serpico (1973), the first of his films about police corruption in New York City, became one of his biggest critical and financial successes. Al Pacino's fascinating portrayal of the real-life cop Frank Serpico earned a Golden Globe and the movie earned two Academy Award nominations (it is worth noting that Lumet's feature films of the 1970s alone earned 30 Oscar nominations, winning six times). The love triangle Lovin' Molly (1974) was not always convincing in its atmospheric details, but Lumet's fine sense of emotional truth and a good Blythe Danner keep it interesting. The adaptation of Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express (1974), an exquisitely photographed murder mystery with an all-star cast, was a big success again. Lumet's complex crime thriller Dog Day Afternoon (1975), which Pauline Kael called "one of the best "New York" movies ever made", gave Al Pacino the opportunity for a breathtaking, three-dimensional portrayal of a bisexual man who tries to rob a bank to finance his lover's sex-change operation. Lumet's next masterpiece, Network (1976), was a prophetic satire on media and society. The film version of Peter Shaffer's stage play Equus (1977) about a doctor and his mentally confused patient was also powerful, not least because of the energetic acting by Richard Burton and Peter Firth. After the enjoyable musical The Wiz (1978) and the interesting but not easily accessible comedy Just Tell Me What You Want (1980), Sidney Lumet won the New York Film Critics Circle Award for his outstanding direction of Prince of the City (1981), one of his best and most typical films. It's about police corruption, but hardly a remake of Serpico (1973). Starring a powerful Treat Williams, it's an extraordinarily multi-layered film. In his highly informative book "Making Movies" (1995), Lumet describes the film in the following way: "When we try to control everything, everything winds up controlling us. Nothing is what it seems." It's also a movie about values, friendship and drug addiction and, like "Serpico", is based on a true story. In Deathtrap (1982), Lumet successfully blended suspense and black humor. The Verdict (1982) was voted the fourth greatest courtroom drama of all time by the American Film Institute in 2008. A few minor inaccuracies in legal details do not mar this study of an alcoholic lawyer (superbly embodied by Paul Newman) aiming to regain his self-respect through a malpractice case. The expertly directed movie received five Academy Award nominations. Lumet's controversial drama Daniel (1983) with Timothy Hutton, an adaptation of E.L. Doctorow's "The Book of Daniel" about two young people whose parents were executed during the McCarthy Red Scare hysteria in the 1950s for alleged espionage, is one of his underrated achievements. His later masterpiece Running on Empty (1988) has a similar theme, portraying a family which has been on the run from the FBI since the parents (played by Christine Lahti and Judd Hirsch) committed a bomb attack on a napalm laboratory in 1971 to protest the war in Vietnam. The son (played by River Phoenix in an extraordinarily moving, Oscar-nominated performance) falls in love with a girl and wishes to stay with her and study music. Naomi Foner's screenplay won the Golden Globe. Other Lumet movies of the 1980s are the melancholic comedy drama Garbo Talks (1984); the occasionally clichéd Power (1986) about election campaigns; the all too slow thriller The Morning After (1986) and the amusing gangster comedy Family Business (1989). With Q&A (1990) Lumet returned to the genre of the New York cop thriller. Nick Nolte shines in the role of a corrupt and racist detective in this multi-layered, strangely underrated film. Sadly, with the exception of Night Falls on Manhattan (1996), an imperfect but fascinating crime drama in the tradition of his own previous genre works, almost none of Lumet's works of the 1990s did quite get the attention they deserved. The crime drama A Stranger Among Us (1992) blended genres in a way that did not seem to match most viewers' expectations, but its contemplations about life arouse interest. The intelligent hospital satire Critical Care (1997) was unfairly neglected as well. The courtroom thriller Guilty as Sin (1993) was cold but intriguing. Lumet's Gloria (1999) remake seemed unnecessary, but he returned impressively with the underestimated courtroom comedy Find Me Guilty (2006) and the justly acclaimed crime thriller Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (2007). In 2005, Sidney Lumet received a well-deserved honorary Academy Award for his outstanding contribution to filmmaking. Sidney Lumet tragically died of cancer in 2011.- Director
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Raised as an Air Force brat, Kevin Reynolds' love for cinema inspired him to forsake his law school degree and move to Los Angeles to enroll in the University of Southern California's legendary film school. Reynolds' graduate thesis film "Proof" became the basis for "Fandango" starring Kevin Costner and was produced by Steve Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment as one of its first productions. During his time at USC, Reynolds also wrote the Cold War cult hit "Red Dawn," which John Milius directed.
Reynolds also directed "The Beast," "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves," "Rapa Nui," "Waterworld," "The Count of Monte Cristo," "Tristan + Isolde," and "One Eight Seven," as well as the "You Gotta Believe Me" episode of Spielberg's anthology television series, "Amazing Stories."
Most recently, Reynolds directed 'Hatfields & McCoys' for History Channel and Sony Pictures Television.- Director
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Michael Cimino studied architecture and dramatic arts; later he filmed advertisements and documentaries and also wrote scripts until the actor, producer and director Clint Eastwood gave him the opportunity to direct the thriller Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974). But his biggest success was The Deer Hunter (1978) which won the Oscar for Best Picture. For another successful film, The Sicilian (1987), he got into trouble with critics when they accused him of portraying as a hero the Italian criminal Salvatore Giuliano.- Producer
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Academy Award-winning filmmaker Ron Howard is one of this generation's most popular directors. From the critically acclaimed dramas A Beautiful Mind (2001) and Apollo 13 (1995) to the hit comedies Parenthood (1989) and Splash (1983), he has created some of Hollywood's most memorable films.
Howard made his directorial debut in 1978 with the comedy Grand Theft Auto (1977). He began his career in film as an actor. He first appeared in The Journey (1959) and The Music Man (1962), then as Opie on the long-running television series The Andy Griffith Show (1960). Howard later starred in the popular series Happy Days (1974) and drew favorable reviews for his performances in American Graffiti (1973) and The Shootist (1976).
Howard and long-time producing partner Brian Grazer first collaborated on the hit comedies "Night Shift" and "Splash." The pair co-founded Imagine Entertainment in 1986 to create independently produced feature films.
Howard's portfolio includes some of the most popular films of the past 20 years. In 1991, Howard created the acclaimed drama "Backdraft", starring Robert De Niro, Kurt Russell and William Baldwin. He followed it with the historical epic Far and Away (1992), starring Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. Howard directed Mel Gibson, Rene Russo, Gary Sinise and Delroy Lindo in the 1996 suspense thriller Ransom (1996). Howard worked with Tom Hanks, Kevin Bacon, Ed Harris, Bill Paxton, Gary Sinise and Kathleen Quinlan on "Apollo 13," which was re-released recently in the IMAX format.
Howard's skill as a director has long been recognized. In 1995, he received his first Best Director of the Year award from the DGA for "Apollo 13." The true-life drama also garnered nine Academy Award nominations, winning Oscars for Best Film Editing and Best Sound. It also received Best Ensemble Cast and Best Supporting Actor awards from the Screen Actor's Guild. Many of Howard's past films have received nods from the Academy, including the popular hits Backdraft (1991), "Parenthood" and Cocoon (1985), the last of which took home two Oscars.
Howard directed and produced Cinderella Man (2005) starring Oscar winner Russell Crowe, with whom he previously collaborated on "A Beautiful Mind," for which Howard earned an Oscar for Best Director and which also won awards for Best Picture, Best Screenplay and Best Supporting Actress. The film garnered four Golden Globes as well, including the award for Best Motion Picture Drama. Additionally, Howard won Best Director of the Year from the Directors Guild of America. Howard and producer Brian Grazer received the first annual Awareness Award from the National Mental Health Awareness Campaign for their work on the film.
Howard was honored by the Museum of Moving Images in December 2005, and by the American Cinema Editors in February 2006. Howard and his creative partner Brian Grazer, were honored by the Producers Guild of America with the Milestone Award in January 2009, NYU's Tisch School of Cinematic Arts with the Big Apple Award in November 2009 and by the Simon Wiesenthal Center with their Humanitarian Award in May 2010. In June 2010, Howard was honored by the Chicago Film Festival with their Gold Hugo - Career Achievement Award. In March 2013, Howard was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame. In December 2015, Howard was honored with a star in the Motion Pictures category, making him one of the very few to have been recognized with two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Howard also produced and directed the film adaptation of Peter Morgan's critically acclaimed play Frost/Nixon (2008). The film was nominated for five Academy Awards including Best Picture, and was also nominated for The Darryl F. Zanuck Producer of the Year Award in Theatrical Motion Pictures by the PGA.
Howard has also served as an executive producer on a number of award-winning films and television shows, such as the HBO miniseries From the Earth to the Moon (1998), Fox's Emmy Award winner for Best Comedy, Arrested Development (2003), a series which he also narrated, Netflix's release of new episodes of "Arrested Development," and NBC's "Parenthood."
Howard's recent films include the critically acclaimed drama Rush (2013), staring Chris Hemsworth and Daniel Brühl, written by Peter Morgan; and Made in America (2013), a music documentary he directed staring Jay-Z for Showtime.
Howard's other films include In the Heart of the Sea (2015), based on the true story that inspired Moby Dick; his adaptation of Dan Brown's best-selling novels Angels & Demons (2009), and The Da Vinci Code (2006) staring Oscar winner Tom Hanks; the blockbuster holiday favorite "Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000)" starring Jim Carrey; "Parenthood" starring Steve Martin; the fantasy epic Willow (1988); Night Shift (1982) starring Henry Winkler, Michael Keaton and Shelley Long; and the suspenseful western, The Missing (2003), staring Oscar winners Cate Blanchett and Tommy Lee Jones.
Recently, Howard directed Inferno (2016), the third installment of Dan Brown 's Robert Langdon franchise and The Beatles: Eight Days a Week - The Touring Years (2016), a documentary about the rock legends The Beatles. He also produced the second season of Breakthrough (2015), Mars (2016), and directed the first episode of Genius (2017), based on the life of Albert Einstein, all for NatGeo.- Actor
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One of the greatest actors of all time, Robert De Niro was born on August 17, 1943 in Manhattan, New York City, to artists Virginia (Admiral) and Robert De Niro Sr. His paternal grandfather was of Italian descent, and his other ancestry is Irish, English, Dutch, German, and French. He was trained at the Stella Adler Conservatory and the American Workshop. De Niro first gained fame for his role in Bang the Drum Slowly (1973), but he gained his reputation as a volatile actor in Mean Streets (1973), which was his first film with director Martin Scorsese. He received an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in The Godfather Part II (1974) and received Academy Award nominations for best actor in Taxi Driver (1976), The Deer Hunter (1978) and Cape Fear (1991). He received the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role as Jake LaMotta in Raging Bull (1980).
De Niro has earned four Golden Globe Award nominations for Best Actor - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy, for his work in New York, New York (1977), opposite Liza Minnelli, Midnight Run (1988), Analyze This (1999) and Meet the Parents (2000). Other notable performances include Brazil (1985), The Untouchables (1987), Backdraft (1991), Frankenstein (1994), Heat (1995), Casino (1995) and Jackie Brown (1997). At the same time, he also directed and starred in such films as A Bronx Tale (1993) and The Good Shepherd (2006). De Niro has also received the AFI Lifetime Achievement Award in 2003 and the Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award in 2010.
As of 2022, De Niro is 79-years-old. He has never retired from acting, and continues to work regularly in mostly film.- Actor
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Kevin Michael Costner was born on January 18, 1955 in Lynwood, California, the third child of Bill Costner, a ditch digger and ultimately an electric line servicer for Southern California Edison, and Sharon Costner (née Tedrick), a welfare worker. His older brother, Dan, was born in 1950. A middle brother died at birth in 1953. His father's job required him to move regularly, which caused Kevin to feel like an Army kid, always the new kid at school, which led to him being a daydreamer. As a teen, he sang in the Baptist church choir, wrote poetry, and took writing classes. At 18, he built his own canoe and paddled his way down the rivers that Lewis & Clark followed to the Pacific. Despite his present height, he was only 5'2" when he graduated high school. Nonetheless, he still managed to be a basketball, football and baseball star. In 1973, he enrolled at California State University at Fullerton, where he majored in business. During that period, Kevin decided to take acting lessons five nights a week. He graduated with a business degree in 1978 and married his college sweetheart, Cindy Costner. He initially took a marketing job in Orange County. Everything changed when he accidentally met Richard Burton on a flight from Mexico. Burton advised him to go completely after acting if that is what he wanted. He quit his job and moved to Hollywood soon after. He drove a truck, worked on a deep sea fishing boat, and gave bus tours to stars' homes before finally making his own way into the films. After making one soft core sex film, he vowed to not work again if that was the only work he could do. He didn't work for nearly six years, while he waited for a proper break. That break came with The Big Chill (1983), even though his scenes ended up on the cutting room floor -- he was remembered by director Lawrence Kasdan when he decided to make Silverado (1985). Costner's career took off after that.- Writer
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Steven Zaillian was born on 30 January 1953 in Fresno, California, USA. He is a writer and producer, known for Searching for Bobby Fischer (1993), The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011) and A Civil Action (1998). He is married to Elizabeth Zaillian. They have two children.- Director
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Stanley Kubrick was born in Manhattan, New York City, to Sadie Gertrude (Perveler) and Jacob Leonard Kubrick, a physician. His family were Jewish immigrants (from Austria, Romania, and Russia). Stanley was considered intelligent, despite poor grades at school. Hoping that a change of scenery would produce better academic performance, Kubrick's father sent him in 1940 to Pasadena, California, to stay with his uncle, Martin Perveler. Returning to the Bronx in 1941 for his last year of grammar school, there seemed to be little change in his attitude or his results. Hoping to find something to interest his son, Jack introduced Stanley to chess, with the desired result. Kubrick took to the game passionately, and quickly became a skilled player. Chess would become an important device for Kubrick in later years, often as a tool for dealing with recalcitrant actors, but also as an artistic motif in his films.
Jack Kubrick's decision to give his son a camera for his thirteenth birthday would be an even wiser move: Kubrick became an avid photographer, and would often make trips around New York taking photographs which he would develop in a friend's darkroom. After selling an unsolicited photograph to Look Magazine, Kubrick began to associate with their staff photographers, and at the age of seventeen was offered a job as an apprentice photographer.
In the next few years, Kubrick had regular assignments for "Look", and would become a voracious movie-goer. Together with friend Alexander Singer, Kubrick planned a move into film, and in 1950 sank his savings into making the documentary Day of the Fight (1951). This was followed by several short commissioned documentaries (Flying Padre (1951), and (The Seafarers (1953), but by attracting investors and hustling chess games in Central Park, Kubrick was able to make Fear and Desire (1952) in California.
Filming this movie was not a happy experience; Kubrick's marriage to high school sweetheart Toba Metz did not survive the shooting. Despite mixed reviews for the film itself, Kubrick received good notices for his obvious directorial talents. Kubrick's next two films Killer's Kiss (1955) and The Killing (1956) brought him to the attention of Hollywood, and in 1957 he directed Kirk Douglas in Paths of Glory (1957). Douglas later called upon Kubrick to take over the production of Spartacus (1960), by some accounts hoping that Kubrick would be daunted by the scale of the project and would thus be accommodating. This was not the case, however: Kubrick took charge of the project, imposing his ideas and standards on the film. Many crew members were upset by his style: cinematographer Russell Metty complained to producers that Kubrick was taking over his job. Kubrick's response was to tell him to sit there and do nothing. Metty complied, and ironically was awarded the Academy Award for his cinematography.
Kubrick's next project was to direct Marlon Brando in One-Eyed Jacks (1961), but negotiations broke down and Brando himself ended up directing the film himself. Disenchanted with Hollywood and after another failed marriage, Kubrick moved permanently to England, from where he would make all of his subsequent films. Despite having obtained a pilot's license, Kubrick was rumored to be afraid of flying.
Kubrick's first UK film was Lolita (1962), which was carefully constructed and guided so as to not offend the censorship boards which at the time had the power to severely damage the commercial success of a film. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) was a big risk for Kubrick; before this, "nuclear" was not considered a subject for comedy. Originally written as a drama, Kubrick decided that too many of the ideas he had written were just too funny to be taken seriously. The film's critical and commercial success allowed Kubrick the financial and artistic freedom to work on any project he desired. Around this time, Kubrick's focus diversified and he would always have several projects in various stages of development: "Blue Moon" (a story about Hollywood's first pornographic feature film), "Napoleon" (an epic historical biography, abandoned after studio losses on similar projects), "Wartime Lies" (based on the novel by Louis Begley), and "Rhapsody" (a psycho-sexual thriller).
The next film he completed was a collaboration with sci-fi author Arthur C. Clarke. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) is hailed by many as the best ever made; an instant cult favorite, it has set the standard and tone for many science fiction films that followed. Kubrick followed this with A Clockwork Orange (1971), which rivaled Lolita (1962) for the controversy it generated - this time not only for its portrayal of sex, but also of violence. Barry Lyndon (1975) would prove a turning point in both his professional and private lives. His unrelenting demands of commitment and perfection of cast and crew had by now become legendary. Actors would be required to perform dozens of takes with no breaks. Filming a story in Ireland involving military, Kubrick received reports that the IRA had declared him a possible target. Production was promptly moved out of the country, and Kubrick's desire for privacy and security resulted in him being considered a recluse ever since.
Having turned down directing a sequel to The Exorcist (1973), Kubrick made his own horror film: The Shining (1980). Again, rumors circulated of demands made upon actors and crew. Stephen King (whose novel the film was based upon) reportedly didn't like Kubrick's adaptation (indeed, he would later write his own screenplay which was filmed as The Shining (1997).)
Kubrick's subsequent work has been well spaced: it was seven years before Full Metal Jacket (1987) was released. By this time, Kubrick was married with children and had extensively remodeled his house. Seen by one critic as the dark side to the humanist story of Platoon (1986), Full Metal Jacket (1987) continued Kubrick's legacy of solid critical acclaim, and profit at the box office.
In the 1990s, Kubrick began an on-again/off-again collaboration with Brian Aldiss on a new science fiction film called "Artificial Intelligence (AI)", but progress was very slow, and was backgrounded until special effects technology was up to the standard the Kubrick wanted.
Kubrick returned to his in-development projects, but encountered a number of problems: "Napoleon" was completely dead, and "Wartime Lies" (now called "The Aryan Papers") was abandoned when Steven Spielberg announced he would direct Schindler's List (1993), which covered much of the same material.
While pre-production work on "AI" crawled along, Kubrick combined "Rhapsody" and "Blue Movie" and officially announced his next project as Eyes Wide Shut (1999), starring the then-married Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. After two years of production under unprecedented security and privacy, the film was released to a typically polarized critical and public reception; Kubrick claimed it was his best film to date.
Special effects technology had matured rapidly in the meantime, and Kubrick immediately began active work on A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001), but tragically suffered a fatal heart attack in his sleep on March 7th, 1999.
After Kubrick's death, Spielberg revealed that the two of them were friends that frequently communicated discreetly about the art of filmmaking; both had a large degree of mutual respect for each other's work. "AI" was frequently discussed; Kubrick even suggested that Spielberg should direct it as it was more his type of project. Based on this relationship, Spielberg took over as the film's director and completed the last Kubrick project.
How much of Kubrick's vision remains in the finished project -- and what he would think of the film as eventually released -- will be the final great unanswerable mysteries in the life of this talented and private filmmaker.- Director
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A very talented painter, Kathryn spent two years at the San Francisco Art Institute. At 20, she won a scholarship to the Whitney Museum's Independent Study Program. She was given a studio in a former Offtrack Betting building, literally in an old bank vault, where she made art and waited to be critiqued by people like Richard Serra, Robert Rauschenberg and Susan Sontag. Later she earned a scholarship to study film at Columbia University School of Arts, graduating in 1979. She was also a member of the British avant garde cultural group, Art and Language. Kathryn is the only child of the manager of a paint factory and a librarian.- Director
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Susan Seidelman was born on 11 December 1952 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. She is a director and producer, known for Desperately Seeking Susan (1985), Sex and the City (1998) and Smithereens (1982).- Director
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Director Charles Crichton's film career began as an editor in 1935 with Alexander Korda's London Films, and in that capacity he worked on such productions as Sanders of the River (1935), Things to Come (1936) and Elephant Boy (1937) (which introduced Sabu to movie audiences). He soon left London Films for Ealing Studios, and rose quickly through the ranks, making his directorial debut with For Those in Peril (1944). Meticulous to the point of being referred to as a "perfectionist", Crichton came into his own at Ealing, a studio noted for its comedies, and among his best known are the quirky but charming The Titfield Thunderbolt (1953) and the wildly popular The Lavender Hill Mob (1951). He tried his hand at drama--outside of Ealing--with The Stranger in Between (1952), starring Dirk Bogarde. When Ealing closed its doors in 1959, Crichton's film work petered off, and he turned more and more to television, becoming a prolific director of crime and adventure series. His occasional forays back into feature films were not particularly productive, and for the most part he remained in television, directing episodes of such popular shows as Secret Agent (1964), The Avengers (1961) and Space: 1999 (1975).
At the request of star John Cleese, Crichton agreed to direct Cleese, Jamie Lee Curtis and Kevin Kline in the offbeat comedy A Fish Called Wanda (1988), which turned out to be a huge international hit. It was his biggest success, and also his last film. He died in London at 1999, at age 89.- Camera and Electrical Department
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John Moore was born in Dundalk, Ireland in 1970, a small town situated about 60 miles from the country's capital Dublin. Moore attended a technical college in Dublin where he studied filmmaking and after completing the school he went on to direct and write a series of short films all produced in his native Ireland. These include Jack's Bicycle (1990) which has been broadcasted on Irish TV channel RTV on occasion. Moore then was hired to make a series of commercials and ended up making the launch advertisement for the Sega Dreamcast, the ad was so bombastic and visually impressive that Twentieth Century Fox ended up offering him the job on Behind Enemy Lines (2001), a $40 million action film centered around the conflict in Bosnia. The film starred Gene Hackman and Owen Wilson. Whilst a modest box-office success the film fared only average with critics who varied in their opinions, and in later years Moore himself admitted that perhaps his approach had been to lightweight and a conflict of that scope required a more deep and thoughtful motion picture. On the set of Behind Enemy Lines (2001) Moore was nearly killed via a Tank in an action sequence and had his life saved in the last moment by a stuntman who dragged him from harm's way. Moore's next film was a remake of The Flight of the Phoenix (1965) and shared the same name only dropping the "the" at the titles beginning. Flight of the Phoenix (2004) starred Dennis Quaid and Miranda Otto and told virtually the same story as the original, a group of people stranded in the desert after a plane crash. The picture was a huge box-office flop making just slightly over $21 million worldwide on a considerably larger budget. Critics showed the same unsure reaction to the film as they had on Behind Enemy Lines (2001), lavishing praise on certain aspects but harshly criticizing others. Moore himself was more pleased with the finished article on this occasion but the public's financial rejection suggests others weren't. After this Moore was involved with two other films one entitled "The last mission" which collapsed due to script issues and the 2006 smash X-Men: The Last Stand (2006). In the end it was not Moore who directed the third in the X-Men trilogy but Rush Hour 2 (2001) director Brett Ratner. However Moore did manage to get a film into cinemas during Summer 2006 in the end, he remade The Omen (1976) and had it released on the 06/06/06, a gimmick associated with the films satanic plot. The Omen (2006) was a fairly faithful remake and starred Julia Stiles along with Liev Schreiber and David Thewlis. Moore agreed to make the film as he names the 1976 original among his all time favorite movies along with Jaws (1975) and Freaks (1932). The film made a worldwide $120 million from a $25 million budget and thus had to be considered a success in terms of box-office. The critics were once more split, most criticized the picture for following the original too closely but by the same token generally a kind word was spared for Moore's impressive visuals and the strong cast. This marked the director's third collaboration with Twentieth Century Fox, a fourth arriving in the form of video-game adaptation Max Payne (2008) in October 2008.
Moore currently resides with his son and partner, Fiona Connon in Los Angeles occasionally returning home to Ireland.- Director
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Bruce Beresford was born in Australia and graduated from Sydney University in 1962. He served as Film Officer for the British Film Institute Production Board from 1966-1971 and as a Film Advisor to the Arts Council of Great Britain. Beresford has also directed several operas including Girl Of The Golden West (Puccini), staged for the Spoleto Festival in Charleston and Spoleto (Italy) and Elektra (Strauss), which was staged for the State Opera Company of South Australia and performed in Adelaide and Melbourne. It won the Award for Best Opera Production of 1991. Immediately prior to starting production on PARADISE ROAD, Beresford directed SWEENEY TODD for the Portland Opera in Oregon.- Actor
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David Cronenberg, also known as the King of Venereal Horror or the Baron of Blood, was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, in 1943. His father, Milton Cronenberg, was a journalist and editor, and his mother, Esther (Sumberg), was a piano player. After showing an inclination for literature at an early age (he wrote and published eerie short stories, thus following his father's path) and for music (playing classical guitar until he was 12), Cronenberg graduated from the University of Toronto with a degree in Literature after switching from the science department. He reached the cult status of horror-meister with the gore-filled, modern-vampire variations of Shivers (1975) and Rabid (1977), following an experimental apprenticeship in independent film-making and in Canadian television programs.
Cronenberg gained popularity with the head-exploding, telepathy-based Scanners (1981) after the release of the much underrated, controversial, and autobiographical The Brood (1979). Cronenberg become a sort of a mass media guru with Videodrome (1983), a shocking investigation of the hazards of reality-morphing television and a prophetic critique of contemporary aesthetics. The issues of tech-induced mutation of the human body and topics of the prominent dichotomy between body and mind were back again in The Dead Zone (1983) and The Fly (1986), both bright examples of a personal film-making identity, even if both films are based on mass-entertainment materials: the first being a rendition of a Stephen King best-seller, the latter a remake of a famous American horror movie.
With Dead Ringers (1988) and Naked Lunch (1991), the Canadian director, no more a mere genre movie-maker but a fully realized auteur, got the acclaim of international critics. Such profound statements on modern humanity and ever-changing society are prominent in the provocative Crash (1996) and in the virtual reality essay of eXistenZ (1999), both of which well fared at the Cannes and Berlin Film Festivals. In the last two film projects Spider (2002) and A History of Violence (2005), Cronenberg avoids expressing his teratologic and oneiric expressionism in favor of a more psychological exploration of human contradictions and idiosyncrasies.- Writer
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James Dearden was born on 14 September 1949 in London, England, UK. He is a writer and director, known for Fatal Attraction (1987), The Cold Room (1984) and The Contraption (1977). He is married to Annabel Brooks.- Director
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Brian Helgeland was born in Providence, Rhode Island and raised in New Bedford Massachusetts. A born worker, Helgeland has endeavored to achieve in the following fields: snow shoveler, scrap newspaper collector, dishwasher, nursing home janitor, drug store clerk and unreliable nightshift gas station attendant. Facing unemployment after receiving a degree in English, Helgeland fell back on generations of family tradition and took a site as a 'half-share man' on the fishing vessel Mondego II, working the dredges of a deep sea scalloper over 100 miles offshore for two weeks at a time. Fish School. North Atlantic University. After a year at sea, a chance meeting with a book entitled "A Guide To Film School" changed everything. Ignorant as to the existence of such venerable institutions, he applied to several and was accepted by one. Giving up his now 'full-share man' berth on the fishing vessel Concordia, Helgeland headed west in 1985. After getting his break with several low budget horror films, he made his mark with several spec script sales, the flashiest being "The Ticking Man" which he co-wrote with Manny Coto. Two other specs sales to Warner Bros landed him an exclusive writing deal at what was then the greatest movie studio on earth. That deal resulted in seven produced films starting with two for director (and longtime mentor) Richard Donner and ending with two films for Clint Eastwood. In between came the much lauded "LA Confidential" for which Helgeland won an Academy Award finally living up to his grandmother's nickname for him of 'Golden Boy'.
Helgeland's directing career began when Donner gave him an episode of "Tales From The Crypt" to direct. Tired of Helgeland's relentless script note complaints, Donner was eager for him to see how things looked at the trigger end of the gun instead of the barrel. Next up as writer/director was "Payback" which Mel Gibson committed to after leafing through a rough draft version of the script on a Warners ADR stage. Although the director's cut was eventually released, the experience was bittersweet as Paramount demanded a happier ending which Helgeland refused to direct. With the rug pulled out from under him, Helgeland regained momentum with the spec script for "A Knight's Tale". He envisioned the rags to riches story of a peasant determined to prove himself a knight, as a version of his own humble beginnings before moving to Hollywood, but also as the tale of a lowly screenwriter who wants to become a noble director. Columbia Pictures bought the script in a bidding war and mere months later Helgeland found himself in the Czech Republic with Heath Ledger, Paul Bettany and the gang conjuring the story of William Thatcher - aka Sir Ulrich von Lichtenstein - in what would become his most fan favorite film.
As solely a screenwriter, the great-never-late Tony Scott is the director he felt closest to sensibility-wise, in that both of them believed that any single moment in a film can be ordinary and absurd and funny and tragic all at the same time. They worked on several projects together - produced and unproduced. "Man On Fire" was their crowning achievement. Helgeland also directed and wrote the film "42" with Chadwick Boseman and "Legend" with Tom Hardy. Both were biopics. His most recent film is "Finestkind" with Ben Foster, Toby Wallace and Jenna Ortega. It is full of truth about people he once knew, but crammed with lies about what they got up to. As he likes to say about writing: "It's okay to lie if you reach a higher truth doing so." Helgeland is an admirer of John Huston, Richard Brooks, Walter Hill, Frank Pierson, Curtis Hanson and all screenwriters who knighted themselves into the director's chair.- Writer
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Yaron Zilberman was born on 2 October 1966 in Haifa, Israel. He is a writer and director, known for Incitement (2019), A Late Quartet (2012) and Watermarks (2004).- Actress
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Penny Marshall was born Carole Penny Marshall on October 15, 1943 in Manhattan. The Libra was 5' 6 1/2", with brown hair and green eyes. She was the daughter of Marjorie (Ward), a tap dance teacher, and Anthony "Tony" Marshall, an industrial film director. She was the younger sister of filmmakers Garry Marshall and Ronny Hallin. Her father was of Italian descent, originally surnamed "Masciarelli," and her mother was of German, Scottish, English, and Irish ancestry.
Penny was known in her family as "the bad one"... because not only did she walk on the ledge of her family's apartment building, but she snuck into the movies as a child and even dated a guy named "Lefty." She attended a private girls' high school in New York and then went to the University of New Mexico for two and a half years. There, Penny got pregnant with daughter, Tracy Reiner, and soon after married the father, Michael Henry, in 1961. The couple divorced two years later in 1963. She worked as a secretary for awhile. Her film debut came from her brother Garry Marshall, who put her in the movie How Sweet It Is! (1968) with the talented Debbie Reynolds and James Garner. She also did a dandruff commercial with Farrah Fawcett - the casting people, of course, giving Farrah the part of the "beautiful girl" and Penny the part of the "plain girl." This only added to Penny's insecurity with her looks.
She then married Rob Reiner on April 10, 1971, shortly after getting her big television break as Oscar Madison's secretary, Myrna Turner, on The Odd Couple (1970). She also played Mary Richards' neighbor, Paula Kovacks, on The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970) for a couple of episodes. However, her Laverne & Shirley (1976) fame came when her brother needed two women to play "fast girls" who were friends of Arthur Fonzarelli and would date Fonzie and Richie Cunningham on Happy Days (1974). Penny had been working on miscellaneous writing projects ("My Country Tis Of Thee", a bicentennial spoof for Francis Ford Coppola and "Paper Hands" about the Salem Witch Trials) with writing partner Cindy Williams. Cindy happened to be a friend and ex-girlfriend of Henry Winkler's, so Garry asked the two to play the parts of these girls. The audience saw their wonderful chemistry, and loved them so much, a spin-off was created for them.
Penny was well-known as Laverne DeFazio. She and Rob had divorced in 1980. The show ended three years later, half a year after Cindy Williams left the show due to pregnancy (her first baby, Emily, from now ex-husband Bill Hudson)... they wanted Williams to work the week she was supposed to deliver.
Soon after, Penny began directing such films as Jumpin' Jack Flash (1986), Big (1988) and A League of Their Own (1992). Her hobbies included needlepoint, jigsaw puzzles and antique shopping. She was best friends with actress Carrie Fisher and was godmother to Carrie's daughter, Billie.
Penny died at 75 in Los Angeles, California.- Director
- Producer
- Writer
Daniel Francis Boyle is a British filmmaker, producer and writer from Radcliffe, Greater Manchester. He is known for directing 28 Days Later, 127 Hours, Trainspotting, T2 Trainspotting, Slumdog Millionaire, Millions, Shallow Grave, The Beach, Yesterday, and Steve Jobs. He won many awards for Slumdog Millionaire. He was in a relationship with Gail Stevens and had three children.- Actor
- Writer
- Director
Alan Rickman was born on a council estate in Acton, West London, to Margaret Doreen Rose (Bartlett), of English and Welsh descent, and Bernard Rickman, of Irish descent, who worked at a factory. Alan Rickman had an older brother (David), a younger brother (Michael), and a younger sister (Sheila). When Alan was 8 years old, his father died. He attended Latymer Upper School on a scholarship. He studied Graphic Design at Chelsea College of Art and Design, where he met Rima Horton, who would later become his longtime partner.
After three years at Chelsea College, Rickman did graduate studies at the Royal College of Art. He opened a successful graphic design business, Graphiti, with friends and managed it for several years before his love of theatre led him to seek an audition with the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA). At the relatively late age of 26, Rickman received a scholarship to RADA, which started a professional acting career that has lasted nearly 40 years, a career which has spanned stage, screen and television, and overlapped into directing, as well. In 1987, he first came to the attention of American audiences as the Vicomte de Valmont in "Les Liaisons Dangereuses" on Broadway (he was nominated for a Tony Award for his performance in the role). Denied the role in the film version of the show, Rickman instead made his first film appearance opposite Bruce Willis in Die Hard (1988) as the villainous Hans Gruber. His take on the urbane villain set the standard for screen villains for decades to come.
Although often cited as being a master of playing villains, Rickman actually played a wide variety of characters, such as the romantic cello-playing ghost Jamie in Anthony Minghella's Truly Madly Deeply (1990) and the noble Colonel Brandon of Sense and Sensibility (1995). He treated audiences to his comedic abilities in such films as Dogma (1999), Galaxy Quest (1999) and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (2005), and roles like Dr. Alfred Blalock in Something the Lord Made (2004), and as Alex Hughes in Snow Cake (2006), showcased his ability to play ordinary men in extraordinary situations. Rickman even conquered the daunting task of singing a role in a Stephen Sondheim musical as he took on the role of Judge Turpin in the movie adaptation of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007). In 2001, Rickman introduced himself to a whole new, younger generation of fans by taking on the role of Severus Snape in the film versions of J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (2001). He continued to play the role through the eighth and last movie Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (2011).
Alan Rickman died of pancreatic cancer on 14 January 2016. He was 69 years old.- Director
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
- Writer
Pascal Chaumeil was born on 9 February 1961 in Paris, France. He was a director and assistant director, known for Heartbreaker (2010), The Fifth Element (1997) and Léon: The Professional (1994). He was married to Camille Lipmann. He died on 27 August 2015 in Paris, France.- Director
- Producer
- Actor
Felix Gary Gray is an African-American music video director, film producer and film director from New York City known for directing films such as Friday, Men in Black: International, Be Cool, The Fate of the Furious, Set It Off, The Negotiator, Straight Outta Compton and The Italian Job. He directed 22 music videos.- Director
- Writer
- Producer
Michael took an English degree at Oxford then trained in film at Bristol and London breaking into television via the cutting room at Thames Television. He made his directorial debut with two documentaries on Ingmar Bergman His production of Love Lies Bleeding won the Silver Award at the 1993 New York Television Festival and the 4 part serial 'Family' has collected numerous awards at film and television festivals around the world. He also directed the opening story in the first series of the multi award winning Cracker- Writer
- Producer
- Music Department
Seth Woodbury MacFarlane was born in the small New England town of Kent, Connecticut, where he lived with his mother, Ann Perry (Sager), an admissions office worker, his father, Ronald Milton MacFarlane, a prep school teacher, and his sister, Rachael MacFarlane, now a voice actress and singer. He is of English, Scottish, and Irish ancestry, and descends from Mayflower passengers.
Seth attended and studied animation at the Rhode Island School of Design and, after he graduated, he was hired by Hanna-Barbera Productions (Now called Cartoon Network Studios) working as an animator and writer on the TV series Johnny Bravo (1997) and Cow and Chicken (1997). He also worked for Walt Disney Animation as a writer on the TV series Jungle Cubs (1996). He created The Life of Larry (1995) which was originally supposed to be used as an in-between on Mad TV (1995). Unfortunately the deal fell through but, a few months later, executives at FOX called him into their offices and gave him $50,000 to create a pilot for what would eventually become Family Guy (1999).
Since Family Guy's debut, MacFarlane has gone on to create two other television shows-American Dad! (2005) and The Cleveland Show (2009). MacFarlane began to establish himself as an actor, voice actor, animator, writer, producer, director, comedian, and singer throughout his career. MacFarlane has also written, directed and starred in Ted (2012) and its sequel Ted 2 (2015), and A Million Ways to Die in the West (2014). He voiced the mouse, Mike, in the animated musical Sing (2016).- Producer
- Director
- Writer
J.C. Chandor is known for A Most Violent Year (2014), Margin Call (2011) and All Is Lost (2013). He has been married to Mary Cameron Goodyear since 2004. They have two children.- Director
- Actor
- Additional Crew
Anton Corbijn was born on 20 May 1955 in Strijen, Zuid-Holland, Netherlands. He is a director and actor, known for Control (2007), A Most Wanted Man (2014) and The American (2010).- Writer
- Director
- Producer
Fernando León de Aranoa was born on 26 May 1968 in Madrid, Spain. He is a writer and director, known for A Perfect Day (2015), The Good Boss (2021) and Mondays in the Sun (2002).- Writer
- Director
- Producer
As both writer and director, David Twohy has contributed much to the film world, helping to elevate movies in such a way that Entertainment Weekly was prompted to name him "one of the 100 most creative people in Hollywood." In his career, Twohy has worked with on-screen notables like Harrison Ford, Judi Dench, Kevin Costner, Vin Diesel, Thandie Newton, Tommy Lee Jones, Jeff Daniels, Richard E. Grant, Chris Hemsworth, Demi Moore, Bruce Greenwood, Olivia Williams, Tim Olyphant and Milla Jovovich. To name a few.
Twohy struck gold early with his screenplay for the Harrison Ford and Tommy Lee Jones vehicle "THE FUGITIVE," nominated in 1993 for Best Screenplay Previously Produced or Published. Other writing-only credits include "WATERWORLD," "TERMINAL VELOCITY," and Ridley Scott's "G.I. JANE."
As a director, Twohy made his debut with "THE GRAND TOUR," which he adapted from Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore's haunting novella "Vintage Season." The movie received the Grand Prix at the Festival Du Film Fantastique and a Golden Scroll from the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror. Twohy was honored again with a Saturn Award for his follow-up directing effort, "THE ARRIVAL."
Twohy's next effort became one of 2000's most unexpected films, "PITCH BLACK." Released by Universal Studios, this modestly budgeted movie shot in the Australian outback startled critics and audiences alike with its chilling mood and unexpectedly deep characters. The success of "PITCH BLACK" would launch a new film franchise for Universal. Its sequels were the sweeping "CHRONICLES OF RIDDICK" and the spartan survival movie "RIDDICK."
Between franchise movies, Twohy found time to write and direct two stand-alone thrillers: "BELOW," co-written with Darren Aronofsky ("REQUIEM FOR A DREAM"), follows a series of eerie occurrences on a claustrophobic submarine during World War II. Twohy then turned to the wide open vistas of Hawaii to film "A PERFECT GETAWAY," a twisted tale that shocked audiences around the world.
Next up for Twohy is "RUNNING WITH LIONS," a contemporary story about the world of Formula One.- Director
- Cinematographer
- Writer
Director/Producer/Writer) Andrew Davis is a filmmaker with a reputation for directing intelligent thrillers, most notably the Academy Award-nominated box-office hit The Fugitive (1993), starring Harrison Ford and Tommy Lee Jones. The film received seven Academy Award nominations including Best Picture and earned Jones a Best Supporting Actor award. Davis garnered a Golden Globe nomination for Best Director and a Directors Guild of America nomination for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Theatrical Direction. In reviewing "The Fugitive", film critic Roger Ebert commended Davis, noting that he "transcends genre and shows an ability to marry action and artistry that deserves comparison with [Alfred Hitchcock], David Lean and Carol Reed. He paints with bold, visual strokes."
Davis is the son of parents who met in a repertory theater company in Chicago, where he was raised. His late father, Nathan Davis, worked on several of his films, including his role as Shia LaBeouf's grandfather in Holes (2011). Andy received his degree in journalism from the University of Illinois and began his work in motion pictures as an assistant cameraman to renowned cinematographer and director Haskell Wexler on the 1969 classic Medium Cool (1969). Wexler's ultra-realistic approach was to have a great influence on Davis, who then became a director of photography on numerous award-winning television commercials and documentaries, including 15 studio and independent features. In 1976, joined by many of his fellow cinematographers, Davis challenged the IATSE union's restrictive studio roster system in a landmark class-action suit that forced the industry to open its doors to young technicians in all crafts.
Davis made his directorial debut in 1978 with the critically acclaimed independent musical Stony Island (1978), which he also co-wrote and produced. The thriller The Final Terror (1983) was Davis' sophomore project, for producer Joe Roth, which starred then- newcomers Darryl Hanah, Joe Pantoliano, Rachel Ward and Adrian Zmed. Davis then co-wrote the screenplay for Harry Belafonte's rap musical Beat Street (1984) before moving into the director's chair full-time for Mike Medavoy and Orion Pictures on the Chuck Norris classic Code of Silence (1985). Davis directed, co-produced and co-wrote Steven Seagal's feature film debut, Above the Law (1988), for Warner Brothers. The Package (1989), (Orion) followed, directed by Davis and starring Gene Hackman and Tommy Lee Jones. Davis went on to direct 1992's top grossing picture, Under Siege (1992), for Warner Brothers, a classic action film teaming Steven Seagal with Tommy Lee Jones.
Davis' other directorial credits include (for Warner Bros.) Collateral Damage (2002), starring Arnold Schwarzenegger; A Perfect Murder (1998), starring Michael Douglas, Gwyneth Paltrow and Viggo Mortensen; Chain Reaction (1996), starring Keanu Reeves, Morgan Freeman and Rachel Weisz; and Steal Big Steal Little (1995), starring Andy Garcia and Alan Arkin.
Davis next directed and produced "Holes", the feature film adaptation of Louis Sachar's beloved Newberry Medal and National Book Award-winning children's novel. Starring Shia Labeouf, Sigourney Weaver, Jon Voight and Patricia Arquette and released by the Walt Disney Company, "Holes" was named one of the 100 Best Family Films. It has been praised by audiences of all ages, furthering Davis' reputation as a director with a wide range. A.O. Scott's review in "The New York Times" called it "the best film released by an American studio so far this year".
In 2000, Davis completed the Disney/Touchstone feature film The Guardian (2006), which honors the true heroes of the ocean, the Rescue Swimmers of the U.S. Coast Guard. Kevin Costner and Ashton Kutcher portray heroic swimmers committed to the personal and physical sacrifices necessary to save the lives of those stranded helplessly in the sea. In an unforgettable instance of life imitating art, the film's New Orleans production was halted due to the ravages of Hurricane Katrina. The staff of U.S. Coast Guard advisors to the production left to help rescue 35,000 people in the wake of one of the worst natural disasters in American history.
Presently, Davis is developing several projects through his Santa Barbara based production company, Chicago Pacific Entertainment, including: Silvers Gold - A Return to Treasure Island, a modern retelling of Robert Louis Stevenson's classic, adapting the Gene Wilder novella My French Whore, Mentors - a series for worldwide television with a pilot episode examining the lives of two legendary photographers. Davis recently completed his first novel, alongside writer Jeff Biggers, Disturbing the Bones, a geopolitical thriller involving the world threatening discovery of rouge weapons found in Southern Illinois by a Chicago detective and a young female archaeologist set for release in summer 2024 by Melville House Publishing. 2023 saw both the 20th anniversary of Holes and the 30th anniversary of a newly remastered version of The Fugitive (1993) overseen by Davis at Warner Bros slated for a limited rerelease in theaters in spring 2024 with a global release on 4K UHD disc in November 2023. In November 2023, Davis' first film, Stony Island (1978) celebrates its 45th anniversary with a theatrical screening at the Gene Siskel Center in Chicago before its North American digital debut on major VOD platforms and DVD.- Director
- Producer
- Writer
Mike Hodges was born on 29 July 1932 in Bristol, England, UK. He was a director and producer, known for Flash Gordon (1980), Get Carter (1971) and Black Rainbow (1989). He was married to Carol Laws and Jean Alexandrov. He died on 17 December 2022 in Dorset, England, UK.- Actor
- Producer
- Director
Clinton Eastwood Jr. was born May 31, 1930 in San Francisco, to Clinton Eastwood Sr., a bond salesman and later manufacturing executive for Georgia-Pacific Corporation, and Ruth Wood (née Margret Ruth Runner), a housewife turned IBM clerk. He grew up in nearby Piedmont. At school Clint took interest in music and mechanics, but was an otherwise bored student; this resulted in being held back a grade. In 1949, the year he is said to have graduated from high school, his parents and younger sister Jeanne moved to Seattle. Clint spent a couple years in the Pacific Northwest himself, operating log broncs in Springfield, Oregon, with summer gigs life-guarding in Renton, Washington. Returning to California in 1951, he did a two-year stint at Fort Ord Military Reservation and later enrolled at L.A. City College, but dropped out to pursue acting.
During the mid-1950s he landed uncredited bit parts in such B-films as Revenge of the Creature (1955) and Tarantula (1955) while digging swimming pools and driving a garbage truck to supplement his income. In 1958, he landed his first consequential acting role in the long-running TV show Rawhide (1959) with Eric Fleming. Although only a secondary player the first seven seasons, he was promoted to series star when Fleming departed--both literally and figuratively--in its final year, along the way becoming a recognizable face to television viewers around the country.
Eastwood's big-screen breakthrough came as The Man with No Name in Sergio Leone's trilogy of excellent spaghetti westerns: A Fistful of Dollars (1964), For a Few Dollars More (1965), and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966). The movies were shown exclusively in Italy during their respective copyright years with Enrico Maria Salerno providing the voice of Eastwood's character, finally getting American distribution in 1967-68. As the last film racked up respectable grosses, Eastwood, 37, rose from a barely registering actor to sought-after commodity in just a matter of months. Again a success was the late-blooming star's first U.S.-made western, Hang 'Em High (1968). He followed that up with the lead role in Coogan's Bluff (1968) (the loose inspiration for the TV series McCloud (1970)), before playing second fiddle to Richard Burton in the World War II epic Where Eagles Dare (1968) and Lee Marvin in the bizarre musical Paint Your Wagon (1969). In Two Mules for Sister Sara (1970) and Kelly's Heroes (1970), Eastwood leaned in an experimental direction by combining tough-guy action with offbeat humor.
1971 proved to be his busiest year in film. He starred as a sleazy Union soldier in The Beguiled (1971) to critical acclaim, and made his directorial debut with the classic erotic thriller Play Misty for Me (1971). His role as the hard edge police inspector in Dirty Harry (1971), meanwhile, boosted him to cultural icon status and helped popularize the loose-cannon cop genre. Eastwood put out a steady stream of entertaining movies thereafter: the westerns Joe Kidd (1972), High Plains Drifter (1973) and The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976) (his first of six onscreen collaborations with then live-in love Sondra Locke), the Dirty Harry sequels Magnum Force (1973) and The Enforcer (1976), the action-packed road adventures Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974) and The Gauntlet (1977), and the prison film Escape from Alcatraz (1979). He branched out into the comedy genre in 1978 with Every Which Way But Loose (1978), which became the biggest hit of his career up to that time; taking inflation into account, it still is. In short, The Eiger Sanction (1975) notwithstanding, the 1970s were nonstop success for Eastwood.
Eastwood kicked off the 1980s with Any Which Way You Can (1980), the blockbuster sequel to Every Which Way but Loose. The fourth Dirty Harry film, Sudden Impact (1983), was the highest-grossing film of the franchise and spawned his trademark catchphrase: "Make my day." He also starred in Bronco Billy (1980), Firefox (1982), Tightrope (1984), City Heat (1984), Pale Rider (1985) and Heartbreak Ridge (1986), all of which were solid hits, with Honkytonk Man (1982) being his only commercial failure of the period. In 1988, he did his fifth and final Dirty Harry movie, The Dead Pool (1988). Although it was a success overall, it did not have the box office punch the previous films had. About this time, with outright bombs like Pink Cadillac (1989) and The Rookie (1990), it seemed Eastwood's star was declining as it never had before. He then started taking on low-key projects, directing Bird (1988), a biopic of Charlie Parker that earned him a Golden Globe, and starring in and directing White Hunter Black Heart (1990), an uneven, loose biopic of John Huston (both films had a limited release).
Eastwood bounced back big time with his dark western Unforgiven (1992), which garnered the then 62-year-old his first ever Academy Award nomination (Best Actor), and an Oscar win for Best Director. Churning out a quick follow-up hit, he took on the secret service in In the Line of Fire (1993), then accepted second billing for the first time since 1970 in the interesting but poorly received A Perfect World (1993) with Kevin Costner. Next was a love story, The Bridges of Madison County (1995), where Eastwood surprised audiences with a sensitive performance alongside none other than Meryl Streep. But it soon became apparent he was going backwards after his brief revival. Subsequent films were credible, but nothing really stuck out. Absolute Power (1997) and Space Cowboys (2000) did well enough, while True Crime (1999) and Blood Work (2002) were received badly, as was Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (1997), which he directed but didn't appear in.
Eastwood surprised again in the mid-2000s, returning to the top of the A-list with Million Dollar Baby (2004). Also starring Hilary Swank and Morgan Freeman, the hugely successful drama won four Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director for Eastwood. He scored his second Best Actor nomination, too. His next starring vehicle, Gran Torino (2008), earned almost $30 million in its opening weekend and was his highest grosser unadjusted for inflation. 2012 saw him in a rare lighthearted movie, Trouble with the Curve (2012), as well as a reality show, Mrs. Eastwood & Company (2012).
Between acting jobs, he chalked up an impressive list of credits behind the camera. He directed Mystic River (2003) (in which Sean Penn and Tim Robbins gave Oscar-winning performances), Flags of Our Fathers (2006), Letters from Iwo Jima (2006) (nominated for the Best Picture Oscar), Changeling (2008) (a vehicle for Angelina Jolie), Invictus (2009) (again with Freeman), Hereafter (2010), J. Edgar (2011), Jersey Boys (2014), American Sniper (2014) (2014's top box office champ), Sully (2016) (starring Tom Hanks as hero pilot Chesley Sullenberger) and The 15:17 to Paris (2018). Back on screens after a considerable absence, he played an unlikely drug courier in The Mule (2018), which reached the top of the box office with a nine-figure gross, then directed Richard Jewell (2019). At age 91, Eastwood made history as the oldest actor to star above the title in a movie with the release of Cry Macho (2021).
Away from the limelight, Eastwood has led an aberrant existence and is described by biographer Patrick McGilligan as a cunning manipulator of the media. His convoluted slew of partners and children are now somewhat factually acknowledged, but for the first three decades of his celebrity, his personal life was kept top secret, and several of his families were left out of the official narrative. The actor refuses to disclose his exact number of offspring even to this day. He had a longtime relationship with similarly abstruse co-star Locke (who died aged 74 in 2018, though for her entire public life she masqueraded about being younger), and has fathered at least eight children by at least six different women in an unending string of liaisons, many of which overlapped. He has been married only twice, however, with a mere three of his progeny coming from those unions.
His known children are: Laurie Murray (b. 1954), whose mother is unidentified; Kimber Eastwood (b. 1964) with stuntwoman Roxanne Tunis; Kyle Eastwood (b. 1968) and Alison Eastwood (b. 1972) with his first ex-wife, Margaret Neville Johnson; Scott Eastwood (b. 1986) and Kathryn Eastwood (b. 1988) with stewardess Jacelyn Reeves; Francesca Eastwood (b. 1993) with actress Frances Fisher; and Morgan Eastwood (b. 1996) with his second ex-wife, Dina Eastwood. The entire time that he lived with Locke she was legally married to sculptor Gordon Anderson.
Eastwood has real estate holdings in Bel-Air, La Quinta, Carmel-by-the-Sea, Cassel (in remote northern California), Idaho's Sun Valley and Kihei, Hawaii.- Producer
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- Director
Born on August 18, 1936, in Santa Monica, California, to Charles Robert Redford, an accountant for Standard Oil, and Martha Redford, Charles Robert Redford, Jr. was a scrappy kid who stole hubcaps in high school and lost his college baseball scholarship at the University of Colorado because of drunkenness. However, as a high school student, he had displayed a certain aptitude as a caricaturist and this contributed to his decision to seriously study art. Redford then enjoyed a year-long sojourn travelling around Europe, hitchhiking, living in youth hostels and generally living the painter's life. Eventually, he came to realise that his work was unoriginal and not very good. He therefore returned to New York to pursue studies in theatrical design at the Pratt Institute of Art. He subsequently enrolled in acting classes at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts.
By the end of 1960, he was on Broadway in a series of plays including Barefoot in the Park, which launched him to fame. TV and stage experience coupled with all-American good looks led to movies and a breakthrough role in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), when the actor was 33. The Way We Were (1973) and The Sting (1973), both in 1973, made Redford No. 1 at the box office for the next three years. Redford used his clout to advance environmental causes and his riches to acquire Utah property, which he transformed into a ranch and the Sundance ski resort. In 1980, he established the Sundance Institute for aspiring filmmakers. Its annual film festival has become one of the world's most influential. Redford's directorial debut, Ordinary People (1980), won him the Academy Award for Best Director in 1981. He waited eight years before getting behind the camera again, this time for the screen version of John Nichols' acclaimed novel of the Southwest, The Milagro Beanfield War (1988). He scored with critics and fans in 1992 with the Brad Pitt film A River Runs Through It (1992), and again, in 1994, with Quiz Show (1994), which earned him yet another Best Director nomination.
Redford married Lola Van Wagenen on August 9, 1958; they divorced in 1985 after having four children, one of which died of sudden infant death syndrome. Daughter Shauna Redford, born November 15, 1960, is a painter who married Eric Schlosser on October 5, 1985, in Provo, Utah; her first child, born in January 1991, made Redford a grandfather. Son James Redford, a screenwriter, was born May 5, 1962. Daughter Amy Redford, an actress, was born October 22, 1970. Redford has a half-brother named William, who worked in medical research.- Actor
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Duke Media Entertainment, led by actor, director, producer, writer and humanitarian, Bill Duke, is dedicated to bringing quality Edutainment to audiences around the globe. Formerly Yagya Productions, Duke Media has successfully produced critically acclaimed film and television content for more than 30 years. Additionally, Duke Media is in process of expanding the brand to involve itself in the development of new media technologies, i.e. cellphone apps, games, and virtual world experiences. Since the early 70s, Bill Duke along with industry veterans Michael Shultz and Gordon Parks, have long paved the way for African Americans in the industry.
Mr. Duke excels in front of and behind the camera. His acting and directing credits are extensive and include stints on such ground breaking television series as Falcon Crest, Fame, Hill Street Blues, Knotts Landing, Dallas, and New York Undercover. His feature credits include Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit, Get Rich or Die Trying, Deep Cover, Hoodlum, Predator, Menace II Society and Not Easily Broken, to name a few. He has recently completed production on, Blexicans, a new television pilot that takes a comedic look at a mixed race family. His documentaries, Dark Girls and Light Girls, both NAACP Image Award nominees, aired on OWN and were two of the most successful documentaries on the network.
Bill Duke's invaluable contributions to the industry have been recognized by both his peers and the entertainment community. Appointed by former President Bill Clinton to the National Endowment of Humanities, he was appointed to the Board of the California State Film Commission by former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and he has been honored by the Directors Guild of America with a Lifetime Achievement Tribute.- Director
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The main part of his few movies were filmed in the quarter of a century in which he worked closely together with the Indian producer Ismail Merchant and the German writer Ruth Prawer Jhabvala. His first films are all set in India and are very much influenced by the style of Satyajit Ray and Jean Renoir. After this period, he filmed three stories in New York and then dedicated his work to the great works of the English literature which made him internationally famous. Examples of this period are The Europeans (1979) and The Bostonians (1984) by Henry James, Jane Austen in Manhattan (1980) by Jane Austen, Quartet (1981) by Jean Rhys or A Room with a View (1985) and Maurice (1987) by E.M. Forster.- Producer
- Director
- Actor
Michael Corrente was born on 6 April 1959 in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, USA. He is a producer and director, known for Federal Hill (1994), Kingpin (1996) and Outside Providence (1999). He was previously married to Libby Langdon.- Producer
- Writer
- Actor
Highly inventive U.S. film director/producer/writer/actor Sam Raimi first came to the attention of film fans with the savage, yet darkly humorous, low-budget horror film, The Evil Dead (1981). From his childhood, Raimi was a fan of the cinema and, before he was ten-years-old, he was out making movies with an 8mm camera. He was a devoted fan of The Three Stooges, so much of Raimi's film work in his teens, with good friends Bruce Campbell and Rob Tapert, was slapstick comedy based around what they had observed from "Stooges" movies.
Among the three of them, they wrote, directed, produced and edited a short horror movie titled Within the Woods (1978), which was then shown to prospective investors to raise the money necessary to film The Evil Dead (1981). It met with lukewarm interest in the U.S. with local distributors, so Raimi took the film to Europe, where it was much more warmly received. After it started gaining positive reviews and, more importantly, ticket sales upon its release in Europe, U.S. distributors showed renewed interest, and "Evil Dead" was eventually released stateside to strong box office returns. His next directorial effort was Crimewave (1985), a quirky, cartoon-like effort that failed to catch fire with audiences. However, he bounced back with Evil Dead II (1987), a racier and more humorous remake/sequel to the original "Dead" that did even better at the box office. Raimi was then given his biggest budget to date to shoot Darkman (1990), a comic book-style fantasy about a scarred avenger. The film did moderate business, but Raimi's strong visual style was evident throughout the film via inventive and startling camera work that caught the attention of numerous critics.
The third chapter in the Evil Dead story beckoned, and Raimi once again directed buddy Campbell as the gritty hero "Ash", in the Gothic horror Army of Darkness (1992). Raimi surprised fans when he took a turn away from the fantasy genre and directed Gene Hackman and Sharon Stone in the sexy western, The Quick and the Dead (1995); four years later, he took the directorial reins on A Simple Plan (1998), a crime thriller about stolen money, starring Bill Paxton and Bridget Fonda. In early 1999, he directed the baseball film, For Love of the Game (1999), and, in 2000, returned to the fantasy genre with a top-flight cast in The Gift (2000). In 2002, Raimi was given a real opportunity to demonstrate his dynamic visual style with the big-budget film adaptation of the Stan Lee comic book superhero, Spider-Man (2002), and fans were not disappointed. The movie was strong in both script and effects, and was a runaway success at the box office. Of course, Raimi returned for the sequel, Spider-Man 2 (2004), which surpassed the original in box-office takings.- Director
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- Costume Designer
Tom Ford is an American fashion designer, film director, screenwriter and film producer. He gained fame as the creative director at Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent. In 2006, Ford launched his own "Tom Ford" label.
Ford directed the films A Single Man (2009) and Nocturnal Animals (2016), both films were Oscar-nominated.
His directorial debut A Single Man is based on the novel of the same name by Christopher Isherwood. The film starred Colin Firth who was nominated for an Academy Award.
In 2016 he directed Nocturnal Animals, an adaptation of the Austin Wright novel Tony and Susan. The film starred Jake Gyllenhaal, Amy Adams, Michael Shannon, Armie Hammer, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, and Laura Linney.- Director
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Jocelyn Moorhouse was born on 4 September 1960 in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. She is a director and writer, known for The Dressmaker (2015), Proof (1991) and Muriel's Wedding (1994). She is married to P.J. Hogan.- Writer
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Scott Frank was born on 10 March 1960 in Fort Walton Beach, Florida, USA. He is a writer and producer, known for Logan (2017), Out of Sight (1998) and The Lookout (2007).- Actor
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Alfonso Arau has had a long and fruitful career both in front of and behind the camera and is one of the most prominent Latino film-makers in Hollywood. He was a drama disciple of Seki Sano--a Japanese teacher, classmate of Lee Strasberg with Konstantin Stanislavski in Russia--and traveled the world from 1964 to 1968 with his one-man show, "Pantomime Happy Madness", after studying with Etienne Decroux and Jacques Lecoq in Paris.
A renowned writer-producer-director-actor in theater and film for more than twenty years, in 1969 he directed his first feature film, El águila descalza (1971), in which he also starred. He has directed many films in Mexico, among them Inspector Calzonzin (1974) and Mojado Power (1981). He has received six Arieles--the Mexican equivalent of the Oscar--and numerous international film awards.
Arau has acted in a number of Mexican and Hollywood films, including The Wild Bunch (1969), El Topo (1970), Mojado Power (1981), Used Cars (1980), Romancing the Stone (1984), Three Amigos! (1986) and Committed (2000). In addition to Like Water for Chocolate (1992), his directing credits include A Walk in the Clouds (1995) with Keanu Reeves and Picking Up the Pieces (2000) with Woody Allen. For television he has done The Magnificent Ambersons (2002), based on the script of Orson Welles' film version (The Magnificent Ambersons (1942)) and the novel by Booth Tarkington.- Producer
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Christopher John Weitz is an American filmmaker, producer and screenwriter who is known for Antz, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, American Pie, About a Boy, The Twilight Saga: New Moon, Nutty Professor II: The Klumps and The Golden Compass. He is married to Mercedes Martinez since 2006 and has three children.- Producer
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Paul Weitz was born on November 19, 1965 in New York City, New York, USA as Paul J. Weitz. He is a director, writer and producer, known for Grandma (2015), About a Boy (2002), and Mozart in the Jungle (2014), for which he won a Golden Globe. He has been married to Patricia Brown since December 15, 2001. They have three children.- Producer
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Director, producer and screenwriter Alexander Payne was born in Omaha, Nebraska. His parents, Peggy (Constantine) and George Payne, ran a Greek restaurant. His father is of Greek and German ancestry, and his mother is of Greek descent; the family name was originally Papadopoulos. He is the youngest of three brothers.
Alexander attended Stanford University, where he majored in Spanish and History. He then went on to study film at UCLA Film School. His university thesis film was screened at the Sundance film festival, which led to him being backed by Miramax to write and direct Citizen Ruth (1996). Payne prefers to have control over his movies, from scripts to cast.- Actor
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Although his actress wife Paula Prentiss became a star by the early 1960s, it took Richard Benjamin almost fifteen years to establish his screen persona, but the wait was rewarding. After extensive work in theatre as actor and director, and his participation in the cult TV series He & She (1967), in which he co-starred with Prentiss, he won the starring role in the screen adaptation of Philip Roth's best-seller, Goodbye, Columbus (1969). That was followed by roles in Diary of a Mad Housewife (1970), The Marriage of a Young Stockbroker (1971) and another Roth adaptation, Portnoy's Complaint (1972), that turned him into a prominent "archetype of East Coast Jewish intellectual agony", as critic Jonathan Romney defines him. But his forte was comedy and he won a Golden Globe when he repeated his stage role in the film version of Neil Simon's The Sunshine Boys (1975). Although he still performs, Benjamin turned to direction since the 80s with the highly acclaimed comedy My Favorite Year (1982).- Writer
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Terry Jones was born in Colwyn Bay, North Wales, the son of Dilys Louisa (Newnes), a homemaker, and Alick George Parry Jones, a bank clerk. His older brother is production designer Nigel Jones. His grandparents were involved in the entertainment business, having managed the local Amateur Operatic Society and staged Gilbert and Sullivan concerts. Jones studied at St. Edmund Hall College, Oxford University, read English but graduated with a degree in History. He was variously captain of boxing, captain of the Rugby Team and School Captain. At about this time, he befriended Michael Palin. Both performed comedy together as part of the Oxford Revue. In 1965, he again partnered Palin in The Late Show (1966) and worked in the dual capacity of writer/actor on Do Not Adjust Your Set (1967) with Palin, Eric Idle and David Jason. Another noteworthy television credit was Complete and Utter History of Britain (1969) (again with Palin) in which fun was poked at famous historical personae, Jones essaying Oliver Cromwell, Sir Walter Raleigh and Henry VIII (among others).
Needless to say that Jones found his greatest success as a founding member of the anarchic and irreverent Monty Python's Flying Circus (1969), along with Palin, Idle, Graham Chapman, John Cleese and Terry Gilliam. Jones not only provided much of the written comic input, but also portrayed many of the classic characters: the implausibly obese Mr. Creosote in The Meaning of Life (1983) (who explodes after one more little wafer), the inept Detective Superintendent Harry "Snapper" Organs in the Piranha Brothers sketch (a take on the Kray Twins), the tobacconist in the Dirty Hungarian Phrasebook sketch and numerous assorted shrill-voiced, slovenly 'rat-bag women' (Mrs. Equator comes to mind).
The Pythons were unconventional, controversial, certainly groundbreaking and invariably inspired, at their best in their unrelenting satirical attacks on established British institutions, ruling hierarchies and the class structure. Jones later said "The thing is we never thought Python was a success when it was actually happening, it was only with the benefit of hindsight". In addition to writing and acting, Jones also co-directed Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975) (with Terry Gilliam) and took solo directing credit for Life of Brian (1979) and The Meaning of Life. Post-Python, he rejoined Palin as co-writer for some of the very best episodes of Ripping Yarns (1976), including Whinfrey's Last Case, Tompkinson's Schooldays, Murder at Moorstone Manor, The Curse of the Claw and The Testing of Eric Oldthwaite. Jones later scripted Labyrinth (1986) from a story by Jim Henson and Dennis Lee and wrote, as well as directed, Erik the Viking (1989) and Absolutely Anything (2015), a science fiction comedy with Simon Pegg and Kate Beckinsale.
On a more serious note, Jones sidelined as a newspaper columnist and was an outspoken social and political commentator (a staunch critic of the Iraq War). His lifelong fascination with medieval and ancient history (and Geoffrey Chaucer in particular) led to presenting a series of television documentaries (Medieval Lives (2004) and Barbarians (2006))) as well as publishing several well researched, if sometimes controversial, books including Chaucer's Knight: The Portrait of a Medieval Mercenary and Who Murdered Chaucer?: A Medieval Mystery.
Jones died at the age of 77 on 21 January 2020 from complications of dementia, at his home in Highgate, North London.- Writer
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Richard Curtis was born on 8 November 1956 in Wellington, New Zealand. He is a writer and producer, known for Love Actually (2003), Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994) and About Time (2013).- Director
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- Actor
Stephen started off in a career in the legal profession before switching to work as an assistant stage manager at London's Royal Court which led to work as an assistant director on films by Karel Reisz and Lindsay Anderson He directed his first short in 1967 and his feature debut, Gumshoe, in 1971. The next 12 years were spent working in television before returning to film with My Bautiful Laundrette- Producer
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Tom Shadyac moved to Los Angeles in 1983 and, at age 24, became the youngest staff joke writer ever for comedian Bob Hope. Shadyac received his master's degree in film from UCLA in 1989 after completing the critically acclaimed short, Tom, Dick and Harry. He then worked on movies-of-the-week, rewrote and directed for Fox. Shadyac has also dabbled in stand-up comedy and at one time, appeared regularly at the Improv on Melrose, as well as guest starring on TV series and movies.- Writer
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Steve Oedekerk, the Academy Award nominated multi-hyphenate, has built an extraordinary career, experiencing vast success in writing, directing, producing, acting, stand-up comedy and computer generated animation. He has written and directed films that have grossed over $1.9 billion in worldwide box office, including such blockbusters as Bruce Almighty, the Ace Ventura franchise, The Nutty Professor, and Patch Adams. He received an Academy Award nomination for his producing and creative leadership role on Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius, and with the addition of the CG animated feature Barnyard along with its Emmy Award winning TV series, Oedekerk has created a successful template for turning hit animated feature films into long running hit television series. Having just completed the screenplay for the upcoming live action/VFX, stereoscopic spectacle Stretch Armstrong for Universal, Oedekerk is currently prepping his next round of blockbuster feature films and TV series.
Cult Crazy: Also excelling in the coveted youth demographic, Oedekerk has created cult franchise properties, whose audience continues to grow with each passing year. From his initial indy feature film High Strung, and his Thumb filmettes, including Thumb Wars and Thumbtanic, to writing, directing and starring in the wild retro-martial arts comedy Kung Pow: Enter the Fist, Oedekerk has a steadily growing base of Oedefans, who religiously await, track down and tune into the future right-brained creations from Steve.
Television: Further expanding the Jimmy Neutron franchise for Nickelodeon Television, Steve executive produced 63 episodes of The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, and 52 episodes of the Emmy Award winning Back at the Barnyard. The Neutron TV series initially released with $100 million dollars of sponsor support, and Back at the Barnyard continually lands in the top 20 ratings of all cable TV, reaching as high as the top 5. The new and raucous, Planet Sheen, a spin-off of the popular Neutron franchise will hit Nickelodeon air in 2010. Oedekerk also starred in his own television special for NBC, produced an animated Christmas special for ABC, and his six Thumb filmette titles: "Thumb Wars","Thumbtanic", "The Blair Thumb", "Bat Thumb", "Frankenthumb" and "The Godthumb" have aired on both Showtime and Cartoon Network.
Digital Media: Always in pursuit of the future of entertainment, Steve is not only focused on the burgeoning areas of new media and social networking, but has created an innovative model defining the future of successful franchise property development, including Gaming, Internet, Mobile, Virtual worlds and Digital Media production. Dirk Derby Wonder Jockey will be the first broadcast length comedy series released exclusively to the online digital media arena and digital hand held media market , including Sony PSP, iPhone and iPad. Dirk Derby will set the pace for the future transition from repurposed online media to full length original content available exclusively in the digital marketplace.
New Technologies: Oedekerk's company, O Entertainment, led the way with the first IMAX 3D animated film,Santa vs. the Snowman 3D (2002), releasing November, 2002 and launching the return of stereoscopic 3D entertainment to the big screen. Oedekerk also created "Thumbmation" the technology behind the series of Thumb Parody projects distributed worldwide on DVD and video by Image Entertainment. Kicking off the series was "Thumb Wars", followed by "Thumbtanic", "The Blair Thumb", "Bat Thumb", "Frankenthumb" and "The Godthumb".
His writing credits include some of the most successful movies in recent history. While writing on the Fox series_"In Living Color" (1990)_, Oedekerk collaborated with Jim Carreyon the surprise hit comedy "Ace Ventura: Pet Detective." When that film became a break-out success, Oedekerk was asked to write and directed its sequel, Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls (1995), which proved to be one of those rare sequels that far surpassed the box office gross of the original.
Following the success of "Ace Ventura" franchise, Oedekerk wrote Universal's_The Nutty Professor (1996)_, which became one of the highest-grossing films of 1996. He also wrote, directed and appeared (in a scene-stealing cameo) in Touchstone Pictures' Nothing to Lose (1997), starring Tim Robbins and Martin Lawrence. He then went on to write the box office smash and Golden Globe nominated Patch Adams (1998) starring Robin Williams. On the small screen, Oedekerk directed, wrote, and starred in his own television special for NBC, produced an animated Christmas special for ABC as well as the original "Thumb Wars" special for UPN.
Oedekerk resides in Southern California with his wife, two children and a badger, pound for pound known to be the most vicious mammal on the planet.- Stunts
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Craig Baxley is a third-generation filmmaker. After starting his career in front of the camera, working his way up as a successful stunt coordinator and second unit director on films like Predator (1987), Reds (1981), The Long Riders (1980) and The Warriors (1979) (with such talented directors as Don Siegel, Alan J. Pakula, Warren Beatty, Norman Jewison, Walter Hill and Steven Spielberg), he transitioned making his directorial debut on the acclaimed hit series The A-Team (1983). His first feature film as a director was Action Jackson (1988) for Joel Silver and was the beginning of a very diverse career working in many genres. He later went on to direct Dark Angel (1990) (a.k.a. "I Come In Peace") starring Dolph Lundgren, Stone Cold and a number of mini-series, including Stephen King's Storm of the Century (1999), Rose Red (2002), The Triangle (2005), The Lost Room (2006) and King's television series Kingdom Hospital (2004), on which he directed every episode of the series.- Producer
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In addition to helming the iconic feature hits An Officer and a Gentleman (1982), Against All Odds (1984), Ray (2004), and the cult thriller The Devil's Advocate (1997), Taylor Hackford has directed the films Dolores Claiborne (1995), Everybody's All-American (1988), and Proof of Life (2000). Taylor developed and produced La Bamba (1987), the most successful Latin-themed feature film in history. Mr. Hackford has been an active member of the Directors Guild of America for over 40 years, including twice as elected President of the DGA, beginning in 2009.- Director
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Karyn Kusama was born on 21 March 1968 in Brooklyn, New York, USA. She is a director and producer, known for The Invitation (2015), Destroyer (2018) and Yellowjackets (2021). She has been married to Phil Hay since October 2006. They have one child.- Actor
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Charles S. Dutton was born on 30 January 1951 in Baltimore, Maryland, USA. He is an actor and producer, known for Gothika (2003), Alien 3 (1992) and A Time to Kill (1996). He was previously married to Debbi Morgan.- Producer
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Brett Ratner is one of Hollywood's most successful filmmakers. His diverse films resonate with audiences worldwide and, as director, his films have grossed over $2 billion at the global box office. Brett began his career directing music videos before making his feature directorial debut at 26 years old with the action comedy hit Money Talks. He followed with the blockbuster Rush Hour and its successful sequels. Brett also directed The Family Man, Red Dragon, After the Sunset, X-Men: The Last Stand, Tower Heist and Hercules.
Ratner has also enjoyed critical acclaim and box office success as a producer. He has served as an executive producer on the Golden Globe and Oscar winning The Revenant, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Black Mass, starring Johnny Depp; and as a producer on Truth, starring Robert Redford and Cate Blanchett; I Saw the Light, starring Tom Hiddleston and Elizabeth Olsen; and the upcoming film Rules Don't Apply, written, directed and produced by Warren Beatty. His other produced films include the smash hit comedy Horrible Bosses and its sequel, and the re-imagined Snow White tale Mirror Mirror.
His additional producing credits include the documentaries Author: The JT LeRoy Story, Catfish, the Emmy-nominated Woody Allen - A Documentary, Helmut by June, I Knew It Was You: Rediscovering John Cazale, Chuck Norris vs. Communism, the 5-time Emmy nominated and Peabody Award winning Night Will Fall, Bright Lights and National Geographic's upcoming Untitled Leonardo DiCaprio Environmental Documentary, directed, produced by and starring Leonardo DiCaprio. He also executive produced and directed the Golden Globe-nominated FOX series Prison Break, and executive produced the television series Rush Hour, based on his hit films.
Brett, along with his business partner James Packer, formed RatPac Entertainment, a film finance production and media company, in 2013. RatPac has a first-look deal with Warner Bros. and joined with Dune Capital to co-finance over 75 films including Gravity, The Lego Movie, American Sniper, and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. RatPac Entertainment also co-financed The Revenant and Birdman with New Regency. Internationally, Warner Bros. and RatPac have formed a joint venture content fund with China's Shanghai Media Group to finance local Chinese content. In partnership with New Regency, RatPac also finances the development and production of Brad Pitt's Plan B Entertainment.
Since inception, RatPac Entertainment has co-financed 52 theatrically released motion pictures exceeding $9.3 billion in worldwide box office receipts. RatPac's co-financed films have been nominated for 51 Academy Awards, 20 Golden Globes and 39 BAFTAs and have won 21 Academy Awards, 7 Golden Globes and 17 BAFTAs.
Brett is a Board of Trustees member of the Simon Wiesenthal Center and Museum of Tolerance. He sits on the boards of Chrysalis, Best Buddies and Do Something, while serving on the Dean's Council of the NYU Tisch School of the Arts and on the Board of Directors at Tel Aviv University's School of Film and Television. In 2017, he will receive a coveted star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.- Director
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A controversial film maker, Wolfgang Petersen has at once been lauded for his professionalism and attention to detail and decried for turning out a string of standard commercial Hollywood blockbusters. The son of a naval officer, Petersen held a lifelong fascination with the sea and naval subjects. He was born in Emden and attended drama school in Hamburg. Having already made some 8 mm films while at school, he proceeded to direct as well as act at the Junges Theater in Hamburg (later renamed the Ernst-Deutsch-Theater). In 1966, he joined the newly formed Deutsche Film- und Fernsehakademie Berlin (DFFB) where he made several short films while simultaneously directing plays in Hamburg. Having caught the eye of German television networks, Petersen went on to direct a string of TV movies which often dealt with such contentious issues as environmental pollution and underage sex. An early success and also his first cinematic release was the taut psychological thriller One or the Other (1974), which starred Jürgen Prochnow and Elke Sommer. This led to more regular assignments on the ever-popular detective series Tatort (1970) for which Petersen directed six episodes.
In 1980, Petersen was commissioned by Bavaria Studios to direct Das Boot (1981), based on a 1971 novel by Lothar G. Buchheim. Filmed on a budget of 32 million DM, it became the most realistic and harrowing portrayal of life aboard a submarine in wartime filmed to date, the action of 'Das Boot' being set during the battle of the North Atlantic and culminating in an abortive attempt to cross the British-controlled strait of Gibraltar into the Mediterranean. The film concluded with a bitterly ironic climax. 'Das Boot' (re-released as a miniseries in 1985) starred Petersen's long-standing collaborator Jürgen Prochnow (who became an international star as a result) and was nominated for six Academy Awards (including Best Director and Best Writing). In its wake, Petersen directed and co-wrote a children's fantasy --again filmed at the Bavaria facilities near Munich-- The NeverEnding Story (1984). Though successful at the box-office (especially in Germany), it did not attract universal critical appeal. By contrast, his second English-language film, the science fiction drama Enemy Mine (1985) was only a modest financial success but rated better in reviews over the years, the Los Angeles Times describing it as "surprisingly coherent, surprisingly enjoyable".
In 1987, Petersen moved to Santa Monica, California. For a while, he was part of an A-list of directors tasked with helming mega-budget blockbusters starring big name actors like Clint Eastwood, Harrison Ford, George Clooney and Brad Pitt. Most were palpable box-office hits, especially In the Line of Fire (1993) (often cited as his best Hollywood enterprise), Air Force One (1997) and the historical epic Troy (2004), which grossed $497.4 million worldwide. Reviewer reception for Troy tended to be lukewarm to cool, even more so with the disaster movies Outbreak (1995) and The Perfect Storm (2000), the latter criticized as suffering from "a lack of any actual drama or characterization". Attracting even lower critical esteem was Petersen's remake of Irwin Allen 's original 1972 disaster movie, Poseidon (2006). It ended up both a box office and a critical flop in the U.S. with only the superior CGI special effects gaining plaudits. Poseidon was nominated for the Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Remake. Following this debacle, Petersen withdrew from Hollywood and had a decade-long hiatus before directing his final picture, the German heist drama Vier gegen die Bank (2016).
Petersen's second wife was the assistant director and script supervisor Maria-Antoinette Borgel with whom he had a son. Petersen died from pancreatic cancer on August 12 2022 in Brentwood, California.- Director
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Michael Apted was born on 10 February 1941 in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, England, UK. He was a director and producer, known for Amazing Grace (2006), Gorillas in the Mist (1988) and Rome (2005). He was married to Paige Simpson, Dana Stevens and Jo Apted. He died on 7 January 2021 in Los Angeles, California, USA.- Writer
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Is the son of a Spanish mother and a Chilean father. His family moved back to Spain when he was 1 year old, and he grew up and studied in Madrid. He wrote, produced and directed his first short film La cabeza at the age of 19, and he was 23 when he directed his feature debut Thesis (1996). His film Open Your Eyes (1997) was a huge success in Spain and was distributed worldwide. It was remade in Hollywood by Cameron Crowe as Vanilla Sky (2001), starring Tom Cruise, Penelope Cruz (also the star of the original version) and Cameron Diaz. The Others (2001) is Amenábar's first English language film.- Director
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Roger Spottiswoode was born on 5 January 1945 in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. He is a director and producer, known for 48 Hrs. (1982), The 6th Day (2000) and Shoot to Kill (1988). He was previously married to Holly Palance.- Director
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Michael Lehmann was born on 30 March 1957 in San Francisco, California, USA. He is a director and producer, known for Hudson Hawk (1991), Heathers (1988) and American Horror Story (2011). He is married to Holland Sutton.- Actor
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Kevin Spacey Fowler, better known by his stage name Kevin Spacey, is an American actor of screen and stage, film director, producer, screenwriter and singer. He began his career as a stage actor during the 1980s before obtaining supporting roles in film and television. He gained critical acclaim in the early 1990s that culminated in his first Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for the neo-noir crime thriller The Usual Suspects (1995), and an Academy Award for Best Actor for midlife crisis-themed drama American Beauty (1999).
His other starring roles have included the comedy-drama film Swimming with Sharks (1994), psychological thriller Seven (1995), the neo-noir crime film L.A. Confidential (1997), the drama Pay It Forward (2000), the science fiction-mystery film K-PAX (2001)
In Broadway theatre, Spacey won a Tony Award for his role in Lost in Yonkers. He was the artistic director of the Old Vic theatre in London from 2004 until stepping down in mid-2015. Since 2013, Spacey has played Frank Underwood in the Netflix political drama series House of Cards. His work in House of Cards earned him Golden Globe Award and Emmy Award nominations for Best Actor.
As enigmatic as he is talented, Kevin Spacey for years kept the details of his private life closely guarded. As he explained in a 1998 interview with the London Evening Standard, "the less you know about me, the easier it is to convince you that I am that character on screen. It allows an audience to come into a movie theatre and believe I am that person". In October 2017, he ended many years of media speculation about his personal life by confirming that he had had sexual relations with both men and women but now identified as gay.
There are, however, certain biographical facts to be had - for starters, Kevin Spacey Fowler was the youngest of three children born to Kathleen Ann (Knutson) and Thomas Geoffrey Fowler, in South Orange, New Jersey. His ancestry includes Swedish (from his maternal grandfather) and English. His middle name, "Spacey," which he uses as his stage name, is from his paternal grandmother. His mother was a personal secretary, his father a technical writer whose irregular job prospects led the family all over the country. The family eventually settled in southern California, where young Kevin developed into quite a little hellion - after he set his sister's tree house on fire, he was shipped off to the Northridge Military Academy, only to be thrown out a few months later for pinging a classmate on the head with a tire. Spacey then found his way to Chatsworth High School in the San Fernando Valley, where he managed to channel his dramatic tendencies into a successful amateur acting career. In his senior year, he played "Captain von Trapp" opposite classmate Mare Winningham's "Maria" in "The Sound of Music" (the pair later graduated as co-valedictorians). Spacey claims that his interest in acting - and his nearly encyclopedic accumulation of film knowledge - began at an early age, when he would sneak downstairs to watch the late late show on TV. Later, in high school, he and his friends cut class to catch revival films at the NuArt Theater. The adolescent Spacey worked up celebrity impersonations (James Stewart and Johnny Carson were two of his favorites) to try out on the amateur comedy club circuit.
He briefly attended Los Angeles Valley College, then left (on the advice of another Chatsworth classmate, Val Kilmer) to join the drama program at Juilliard. After two years of training he was anxious to work, so he quit Juilliard sans diploma and signed up with the New York Shakespeare Festival. His first professional stage appearance was as a messenger in the 1981 production of "Henry VI".
Festival head Joseph Papp ushered the young actor out into the "real world" of theater, and the next year Spacey made his Broadway debut in Henrik Ibsen's "Ghosts". He quickly proved himself as an energetic and versatile performer (at one point, he rotated through all the parts in David Rabe's "Hurlyburly"). In 1986, he had the chance to work with his idol and future mentor, Jack Lemmon, on a production of Eugene O'Neill's "Long Day's Journey Into Night". While his interest soon turned to film, Spacey would remain active in the theater community - in 1991, he won a Tony Award for his turn as "Uncle Louie" in Neil Simon's Broadway hit "Lost in Yonkers" and, in 1999, he returned to the boards for a revival of O'Neill's "The Iceman Cometh".
Spacey's film career began modestly, with a small part as a subway thief in Heartburn (1986). Deemed more of a "character actor" than a "leading man", he stayed on the periphery in his next few films, but attracted attention for his turn as beady-eyed villain "Mel Profitt" on the TV series Wiseguy (1987). Profitt was the first in a long line of dark, manipulative characters that would eventually make Kevin Spacey a household name: he went on to play a sinister office manager in Glengarry Glen Ross (1992), a sadistic Hollywood exec in Swimming with Sharks (1994), and, most famously, creepy, smooth-talking eyewitness Verbal Kint in The Usual Suspects (1995).
The "Suspects" role earned Spacey an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor and catapulted him into the limelight. That same year, he turned in another complex, eerie performance in David Fincher's thriller Se7en (1995) (Spacey refused billing on the film, fearing that it might compromise the ending if audiences were waiting for him to appear). By now, the scripts were pouring in. After appearing in Al Pacino's Looking for Richard (1996), Spacey made his own directorial debut with Albino Alligator (1996), a low-key but well received hostage drama. He then jumped back into acting, winning critical accolades for his turns as flashy detective Jack Vincennes in L.A. Confidential (1997) and genteel, closeted murder suspect Jim Williams in Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (1997). In October 1999, just four days after the dark suburban comedy American Beauty (1999) opened in US theaters, Spacey received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Little did organizers know that his role in Beauty would turn out to be his biggest success yet - as Lester Burnham, a middle-aged corporate cog on the brink of psychological meltdown, he tapped into a funny, savage character that captured audiences' imaginations and earned him a Best Actor Oscar.
No longer relegated to offbeat supporting parts, Spacey seems poised to redefine himself as a Hollywood headliner. He says he's finished exploring the dark side - but, given his attraction to complex characters, that mischievous twinkle will never be too far from his eyes.
In February 2003 Spacey made a major move back to the theatre. He was appointed Artistic Director of the new company set up to save the famous Old Vic theatre, The Old Vic Theatre Company. Although he did not undertake to stop appearing in movies altogether, he undertook to remain in this leading post for ten years, and to act in as well as to direct plays during that time. His first production, of which he was the director, was the September 2004 British premiere of the play Cloaca by Maria Goos (made into a film, Cloaca (2003)). Spacey made his UK Shakespearean debut in the title role in Richard II in 2005. In 2006 he got movie director Robert Altman to direct for the stage the little-known Arthur Miller play Resurrection Blues, but that was a dismal failure. However Spacey remained optimistic, and insisted that a few mistakes are part of the learning process. He starred thereafter with great success in Eugene O'Neill's A Moon for the Misbegotten along with Colm Meaney and Eve Best, and in 2007 that show transferred to Broadway. In February 2008 Spacey put on a revival of the David Mamet 1988 play Speed-the-Plow in which he took one of the three roles, the others being taken by Jeff Goldblum and Laura Michelle Kelly.
In 2013, Spacey took on the lead role in an original Netflix series, House of Cards (2013). Based upon a British show of the same name, House of Cards is an American political drama. The show's first season received a Primetime Emmy Award nomination to include Outstanding lead actor in a drama series. In 2017, he played a memorable role as a villain in the action thriller Baby Driver (2017).- Writer
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Charles Shyer was born in Los Angeles, California, USA as Charles Richard Shyer. He is a director, producer and writer, known for Private Benjamin (1980), The Parent Trap (1998), Alfie (2004) and Father of the Bride (1991), Father of the Bride Part II (1995) and The Noel Diary (2022). He was previously married to Deborah Lynn, Nancy Meyers and Diana Ewing.- Writer
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Pietro Germi was born on 14 September 1914 in Genoa, Liguria, Italy. He was a writer and director, known for The Railroad Man (1956), Divorce Italian Style (1961) and The Birds, the Bees and the Italians (1966). He was married to Olga D'Aiello and Anna Bancio. He died on 5 December 1974 in Rome, Lazio, Italy.- Producer
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As a director, screenwriter, and producer, four-time Academy Award nominee Michael Mann has established himself as one of the most innovative and influential filmmakers in American cinema. After writing and directing the Primetime Emmy Award-winning television movie The Jericho Mile (1979), Mann made his feature-film directorial debut with Thief (1981), followed by executive producing the television series Miami Vice (1984). He went on to direct Manhunter (1986), The Last of the Mohicans (1992), Heat (1995), and The Insider (1999), Ali (2001), Collateral (2004), a film adaptation of Miami Vice (2006), Public Enemies (2009), and Blackhat (2015).
As a producer, Mann's work includes Martin Scorsese's The Aviator (2004), Hancock (2008), Texas Killing Fields (2011), and the HBO series Luck (2011) and Witness (2012). He has been a member of the Directors Guild of America since 1977 and has served on the DGA's National Board.- Producer
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Timothy Walter Burton was born in Burbank, California, to Jean Rae (Erickson), who owned a cat-themed gift shop, and William Reed Burton, who worked for the Burbank Park and Recreation Department. He spent most of his childhood as a recluse, drawing cartoons, and watching old movies (he was especially fond of films with Vincent Price). When he was in the ninth grade, his artistic talent was recognized by a local garbage company, when he won a prize for an anti-litter poster he designed. The company placed this poster on all of their garbage trucks for a year. After graduating from high school, he attended California Institute of the Arts. Like so many others who graduated from that school, Burton's first job was as an animator for Disney.
His early film career was fueled by almost unbelievable good luck, but it's his talent and originality that have kept him at the top of the Hollywood tree. He worked on such films as The Fox and the Hound (1981) and The Black Cauldron (1985), but had some creative differences with his colleagues. Nevertheless, Disney recognized his talent, and gave him the green light to make Vincent (1982), an animated short about a boy who wanted to be just like Vincent Price. Narrated by Price himself, the short was a critical success and won several awards. Burton made a few other short films, including his first live-action film, Frankenweenie (1984). A half-hour long twist on the tale of Frankenstein, it was deemed inappropriate for children and wasn't released. But actor Paul Reubens (aka Pee-Wee Herman) saw Frankenweenie (1984), and believed that Burton would be the right man to direct him in his first full-length feature film, Pee-wee's Big Adventure (1985). The film was a surprise success, and Burton instantly became popular. However, many of the scripts that were offered to him after this were essentially just spin-offs of the film, and Burton wanted to do something new.
For three years, he made no more films, until he was presented with the script for Beetlejuice (1988). The script was wild and wasn't really about anything, but was filled with such artistic and quirky opportunities, Burton couldn't say no. Beetlejuice (1988) was another big hit, and Burton's name in Hollywood was solidified. It was also his first film with actor Michael Keaton. Warner Bros. then entrusted him with Batman (1989), a film based on the immensely popular comic book series of the same name. Starring Michael Keaton and Jack Nicholson, the film was the most financially successful film of the year and Burton's biggest box-office hit to date. Due to the fantastic success of his first three films, he was given the green light to make his next film, any kind of film he wanted. That film was Edward Scissorhands (1990), one of his most emotional, esteemed and artistic films to date. Edward Scissorhands (1990) was also Burton's first film with actor Johnny Depp. Burton's next film was Batman Returns (1992), and was darker and quirkier than the first one, and, while by no means a financial flop, many people felt somewhat disappointed by it. While working on Batman Returns (1992), he also produced the popular The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993), directed by former fellow Disney Animator Henry Selick. Burton reunited with Johnny Depp on the film Ed Wood (1994), a film showered with critical acclaim, Martin Landau won an academy award for his performance in it, and it is very popular now, but flopped during its initial release. Burton's subsequent film, Mars Attacks! (1996), had much more vibrant colors than his other films. Despite being directed by Burton and featuring all-star actors including Jack Nicholson, Glenn Close, Pierce Brosnan and Michael J. Fox, it received mediocre reviews and wasn't immensely popular at the box office, either.
Burton returned to his darker and more artistic form with the film Sleepy Hollow (1999), starring Johnny Depp, Christina Ricci and Casper Van Dien. The film was praised for its art direction and was financially successful, redeeming Burton of the disappointment many had felt by Mars Attacks! (1996). His next film was Planet of the Apes (2001), a remake of the classic of the same name. The film was panned by many critics but was still financially successful. While on the set of Planet of the Apes (2001), Burton met Helena Bonham Carter, with whom he has two children. Burton directed the film Big Fish (2003) - a much more conventional film than most of his others, it received a good deal of critical praise, although it disappointed some of his long-time fans who preferred the quirkiness of his other, earlier films. Despite the fluctuations in his career, Burton proved himself to be one of the most popular directors of the late 20th century. He directed Johnny Depp once again in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005), a film as quirky anything he's ever done.- Producer
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Mark Mylod is known for Succession (2018), Game of Thrones (2011) and Shameless (2011). He is married to Amy Westcott. They have four children.- Director
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Jean-Pierre Jeunet is a self-taught director who was very quickly interested by cinema, with a predilection for a fantastic cinema where form is as important as the subject. Thus he started directing TV commercials and video clips (such as Julien Clerc in 1984). At the same time he met designer/drawer Marc Caro with whom he made two short animation movies: L'évasion (1978) and Le manège (1979), the latter winning a César for the best short movie. After these two successful movies Jeunet and Caro spent more than one year together by making every detail (scenario, costumes, production design) of their third short movie: The Bunker of the Last Gunshots (1981). This movie combined sci-fi and heroic-fantasy in a visually delirious story of the rising paranoia among soldiers trapped underground. With that movie they garnered several festival prizes in France. (This movie also marked their first collaboration with Gilles Adrien who later wrote the story of their two feature movies with them). After that Jeunet directed two other short movies without the help of Caro: Pas de repos pour Billy Brakko (1983), then Foutaises (1989) with Dominique Pinon who became another regular collaborator of Jeunet. All Jeunet's short movies won a lot of awards in France but also overseas and he won a second César with Foutaises (1989).
In 1991, Jeunet and Caro took their first steps in a feature movie: Delicatessen (1991). It was such a success that it won 4 Césars including the awards for the best new director(s) and the best scenario. For this movie Jeunet and Caro divided responsibilities with the former guiding the actors and the latter coordinating the artistic elements. And Jeunet showed again his liking to have Dominique Pinon, of course, but also Rufus, Jean-Claude Dreyfus and Ticky Holgado who appeared again in Jeunet's next movies, or Maurice Lamy who already had a little role in Foutaises (1989). The success of Delicatessen (1991) even surprised Jeunet and Caro themselves but they took advantage of that in order to finally make their almost 10 year-old project! This project took more than 4 more years to be carried out but the movie turned out enormous: The City of Lost Children (1995) was a black tale and was so innovative at this period that they needed to create new software for the special effects (mostly made by Pitof). Jeunet and Caro kept the same responsibilities as in Delicatessen (1991) and the movie also combined different international skills: US actor Ron Perlman, Chilean-born actor Daniel Emilfork, Iranian cinematographer Darius Khondji (who was already in the crew of Delicatessen (1991)), Americo-Italian composer Angelo Badalamenti and French fashion-designer Jean-Paul Gaultier for the costumes. While the film was supposed to be suitable for children, some considered it "dark", to which Jeunet and Caro replied that it was no more "dark" than Pinocchio (1940) or Bambi (1942).
But these critics didn't stop the movie from being successful and when the movie gained them further attention, it was only a matter of time before Hollywood called them. Thus in 1997, Jeunet left France to make a temporary career in the USA for the fourth installment of the 'Alien' series: Alien: Resurrection (1997). Marc Caro followed him just as a design supervisor but Jeunet brought with him a little army' of his usual collaborators (mostly French): actors Dominique Pinon and Ron Perlman, but also Pitof, Darius Khondji or editor Hervé Schneid, and for the first time Alain Carsoux who was responsible of the special effects of Jeunet's next film. In 2000, after two collaborations with Caro and one in the US, Jeunet came back to France in order to make a more personal movie, even if Guillaume Laurant wrote the story with him. Thus he used a lot of different details he wrote everywhere during his life (and also recycled things he'd already done, e.g. in Foutaises (1989)) and shot his story mostly in the Parisian suburb of Montmartre where he lives. Then the result was Amélie (2001) starring Audrey Tautou and Mathieu Kassovitz. With this movie Jeunet made the biggest worldwide success of French cinema history. A real magical potion, which won innumerable awards in the whole world including 4 Césars (therefore Jeunet won his fifth and sixth Césars!).
Jeunet eventually decided to adapt Sébastien Japrisot's book A Very Long Engagement (2004) for which he called Audrey Tautou and Dominique Pinon again, but also many other famous French actors and Jodie Foster. It had one of the most important budgets in French film history and eventually had a good international success and many nominations and awards.- Writer
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Paul W.S. Anderson gained a fair bit of notoriety in his native England when he directed the ultra-violent Shopping (1994) (which he also wrote), starring Jude Law and Sean Pertwee in a story about thieves who steal by ramming a car into storefronts. The film was banned in some cinemas in England, and became a direct-to-video slightly edited release in the United States.
Shopping (1994) allowed Anderson to get the chance to direct Mortal Kombat (1995), an adaptation of the hit video game, which showcased his directorial trademarks - visually stunning scenery and quick-cut editing. The film did well enough for him to choose his next project, which was Soldier (1998) with Warner Bros., with Kurt Russell in the lead. Unfortunately, Russell decided at the time to go on hiatus, pushing the release date of that film into 1998. In the meantime, Anderson directed Event Horizon (1997) from a script by Philip Eisner, which featured Anderson regulars Sean Pertwee and Jason Isaacs. The science fiction/horror film, a Gothic horror version of Solaris (1972), was stylish and scary, but was critically panned and did not do well in the box office, which Anderson blamed on studio-enforced cuts to the story. (Anderson has promised a Director's Cut, though none has been announced as of yet).
Soldier (1998) didn't fare well with critics and box office either, and Anderson's planned 2000 remake of Death Race 2000 (1975) was canceled. This forced him to think smaller, which led to The Sight (2000), a supernatural mystery movie that was a minor hit. He then resurfaced to direct another video game adaption, Resident Evil (2002). Long rumored among fans to be a choice comeback vehicle for zombie grandfather George A. Romero, the writing and directing credits eventually transferred to Anderson. He next was given the helm for the long-awaited film adaption of the popular Dark Horse comic book, Alien vs. Predator (2004).- Producer
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Frank was born in Glendale, California to musician Jack Marshall. He entered the film world when his parents invited him to a birthday party for the daughter of directing legend John Ford in 1966. There, he met Peter Bogdanovich and soon agreed to work on his first film, Targets (1968), later followed by collaborating on The Last Picture Show (1971) and many other films.
Continuing to branch out into the industry, he served as line producer on Martin Scorsese's The Last Waltz (1978) and associate producer on Walter Hill's crime thriller, The Driver (1978). Marshall first worked as executive producer on Hill's cult classic The Warriors (1979). While producing the iconic Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), he met Steven Spielberg and their future wife Kathleen Kennedy, and Frank himself was hired to join the Amblin Productions company in 1980.
He continued producing memorable films with Spielberg including Poltergeist (1982) and Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983) (while Kennedy separately produced E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982)). He worked as executive producer on Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984), Gremlins (1984), The Goonies (1985) and the Back to the Future (1985) trilogy.
He married Kathleen Kennedy in 1987, and after producing numerous films, he made his feature directing debut with Arachnophobia (1990). Reacting to the success of his directorial debut, he left Amblin in 1991. In 1992, The Kennedy/Marshall Company was formed, and the next year they released its first film Alive (1993), directed by Marshall. Both Kennedy and Marshall signed deals with Paramount in 1992, at the same time the company was formed. His productivity has only increased since then, as he took over primary duties of the production company since Kennedy was named president of Lucasfilm in 2012.- Music Department
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Andrew Jarecki is an American filmmaker, musician, and entrepreneur. He is best known for the Emmy-winning 2015 HBO documentary series "The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst" that led to the arrest and imprisonment of Mr. Durst. He is also known for documentary film "Capturing the Friedmans," which won eighteen international prizes including the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival and the New York Film Critics Circle award, and was nominated for an Academy Award. He produced the documentary film "Catfish" and the eponymous MTV television series. With JJ Abrams, he co-wrote and performed the theme song for the WB Network television series Felicity (1998), and with CrabCorps, he produced music for the film "Silver Linings Playbook." He also co-founded Moviefone and created the KnowMe iOS platform. He is a graduate of Princeton University where he was a theatrical director. He resides in New York City.- Writer
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Carl Reiner is a legend of American comedy, who achieved great success as a comic actor, a director, producer and recording artist. He won nine Emmy Awards, three as an actor, four as a writer and two as a producer. He also won a Grammy Award for his album "The 2,000 Year Old Man", based on his comedy routine with Mel Brooks.
Reiner was born in The Bronx, to Bessie (Mathias) and Irving Reiner, a watchmaker. His father was an Austrian Jewish immigrant and his mother was a Romanian Jewish immigrant. At the age of sixteen, while working as a sewing machine repairman, he attended a dramatic workshop sponsored by the Works Progress Administration. The direction of his life was set.
In the 1970s, some sources claimed that Reiner made his movie debut in New Faces of 1937 (1937), but that is unlikely as he would have only been fifteen years old at the time. (the movie shares the same plot as his erstwhile partner Mel Brooks' classic The Producers (1967), with a crooked producer planning to fleece his "angels" by producing a flop and absconding with the money). He didn't appear on screen, silver or small, until he made his television debut in 1948 in the short-lived television series, The Fashion Story (1948), then became a regular, the following year, on The Fifty-Fourth Street Revue (1949), another television series with a brief life.
Reiner made his Broadway debut in 1949 in the musical "Inside U.S.A.", a hit that ran for 399 performances. His next Broadway show, the musical revue "Alive and Kicking" (1950) was a flop, lasting just 43 performances. Max Liebman, the producer/director/writer/composer, had been called in to provide additional material after the show's troubled six week out-of-town preview in Boston. It didn't help -- the show closed after six weeks on Broadway -- but an important contact had been made.
Leibman was a producer-director on Your Show of Shows (1950), one of the great television series, and he hired Reiner to appear on the show in the middle of its first season. Reiner's first gig on the revue-like show was interviewing The Professor, a character played by Sid Caesar. He became central to the comedy portions of the show and, in 1953, he racked up the first of six Emmy Award nominations for acting. (In all, he was nominated for an Emmy Award a total of 13 times). When, in 1954, "Your Show of Shows" was split up by the network into its constituent parts, Reiner continued on with Sid in Caesar's Hour (1954). (Imogene Coca was given her own show, which lasted one season, and Leibman was allowed to produce specials).
"Your Show or Shows" had been a Broadway-style revue, featuring skits such as dancing (including a young Bob Fosse) whereas "Caesar's Hour" was pure comedy. "Your Show of Shows" had had a great cast, another other than Coca, most of the cast, including Reiner, Howard Morris, and Nanette Fabray (who went on to win an Emmy Award) moved over to "Caesar's Hour". In his three seasons on the show, he was nominated three more times for an Emmy Award for Best Supporting Actor, winning twice in 1957 and 1958. But it was its stable of comedy writers that was essential to the great success of both "Your Show of Shows" and "Caesar's Hour". In addition to Mel Brooks, the writing staff included Neil Simon, his brother Danny Simon, Larry Gelbart and Mel Tolkin. (There are rumors that the young Woody Allen served as the writing staff's typist).
Reiner had sat in informally with the writers during "Your Show of Shows", but he began writing formally for "Caesar's Hour", having learned his craft from all of the other writers. As a self-described uncredited "writer without portfolio", he was able to leave writers' meetings at 6 P.M., if he wanted to. This gave him the time to work on a semi-autobiographical novel. Published in 1958, Enter Laughing (1967) is about a young man in 1930s New York trying to make it in show business. It was transformed into a play and, eventually, adapted into a movie in 1967, and a musical, many years later.
In 1959, he created the pilot for a television series, "Man of the House", in which he would play a writer, Rob Petrie, who balanced his family life with the demands of working as a writer for a comedy show headlined by an egotistical comedic genius modeled after Sid Caesar (a "benign despot" who lacked social skills, according to Reiner). The series was rooted in his experience on "Your Show of Shows" and "Caesar's Hour". The network didn't pick up the pilot at first, as CBS executives claimed the main character, which was clearly autobiographical on Reiner's part, was too New York, too Jewish and too intellectual. In 1960, Reiner teamed up with Mel Brooks on The Steve Allen Plymouth Show (1956), and their routine "The 2000 Year Old Man" was a huge success. Reiner played the straight man to Brooks in the routine, which was spun-off into five comedy albums, bringing them a Grammy Award. They also made an animated television special based on their shtick in 1975.
Though CBS turned down "Man of the House", with the two-time Emmy Award-winning comedian Reiner as the lead, it was still interested in the series. However, they wanted a different actor in the lead role, and the casting of the protagonist came down to Johnny Carson and Dick Van Dyke. Carson was a game show host of no great note at the time, but Van Dyke was in the smash Broadway musical Bye Bye Birdie (1963), for which he won a Tony Award. He got the role and another chapter of television history was made, when Mary Tyler Moore, Rose Marie and Morey Amsterdam all were cast in leading roles. Reiner, himself, would eventually play the role of Alan Brady, the abrasive Sid Caesar-like comic convinced of his own genius, in the last few seasons of the series' five-year run.
Another milestone in television comedy, The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961), brought Reiner five more Emmy Awards, three for writing and two as the producer of the series. In 1966, Reiner and the other principals, including executive producer Sheldon Leonard and Dick Van Dyke, decided to end the series at the height of its popularity and critical acclaim. (The show won Emmy Awards as best show and best comedy in 1965 and 1966, respectively). Twenty-nine years after the show was ended, Reiner reprised the role of Alan Brady on Mad About You (1992), winning his eighth (and so far, last) Emmy Award, this time as Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series.
It was on "The Dick Van Dyke Show" that Reiner first became a director. His feature film debut, as a director, was with the film adaptation of the play Joseph Stein had adapted from his 1958 novel, Enter Laughing (1967). His work as a writer-director, with Dick Van Dyke, in creating a Stan Laurel-type character in The Comic (1969) was not a success, but Where's Poppa? (1970) became a cult classic and Oh, God! (1977), with George Burns, and The Jerk (1979), with Steve Martin, were smash hits. The last film he directed was the romantic comedy That Old Feeling (1997).
Reiner's career continued into the 21st century, when most of his contemporaries had retired or passed. He was awarded the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor in 2000 and acted in the remake of Ocean's Eleven (2001) and its two sequels. He also appeared as a voice artist in the film Good Boy (2003), and the animated series The Cleveland Show (2009) (he even wrote an episode for the series rooted in his "Your Show of Shows" experience). He was also a regular on the series Hot in Cleveland (2010) (with fellow nonagenarian Betty White), and appeared on an episode of Parks and Recreation (2009) in 2012. His last film role was as the voice of Carl Reineroceros in Toy Story 4 (2019), opposite his old compatriot Mel Brooks.
Carl Reiner died at age 98 of natural causes on June 29, 2020, in Beverly Hills, California.- Additional Crew
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Bob Fosse was born on 23 June 1927 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. He was an actor and director, known for Cabaret (1972), All That Jazz (1979) and Lenny (1974). He was married to Gwen Verdon, Joan McCracken and Mary Ann Niles. He died on 23 September 1987 in Washington, District of Columbia, USA.- Writer
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John Hughes was an American film director, film producer, and screenwriter. He was credited for creating some of the most memorable comedy films of the 1980s and the 1990s, when he was at the height of his career. He had a talent for writing coming-of-age stories, and for depicting fairly realistic adolescent characters.
In 1950, Hughes was born in Lansing, Michigan. The city's main employers for much of the 20th century were manufacturing plants for automobiles. Lansing housed the headquarters of companies such as Oldsmobile and the REO Motor Car Company. Hughes' father John Hughes Sr. was a salesman, while Hughes' mother Marion Crawford worked as a volunteer for charity organizations.
Hughes had three sisters and no brothers. His family moved often. For most of his childhood, the Hughes family lived in Grosse Pointe, Michigan, a commuter suburb of Metro Detroit. According to an interview of Hughes, he was the only boy in his neighborhood while growing up. He was surrounded by girls and "old people," and there was no boys around for him to befriend. He spend a lot of time alone, and used his active imagination to keep himself entertained.
In 1963, the Hughes family moved to Northbrook, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. Hughes attended first the Grove Middle School, and then the Glenbrook North High School. His high school experiences reportedly provided inspiration for his teen-themed films of his career. According to interviews with Hughes' friends, Hughes had a poor relationship with his parents who often criticized him.
As an adolescent, Hughes felt the need to escape his problems. He became an avid film fan, as he found that films satisfied his need for escapism. He was a fan of both the Rat Pack (an informal group of actors and singers), and the music group The Beatles.
After graduating high school, Hughes enrolled in the University of Arizona. He eventually dropped out of the University, and tried to make a living as a comedy writer. He wrote jokes for professional comedians, such as Rodney Dangerfield (1921 - 2004) and Joan Rivers (1933 - 2014).
In 1970, Hughes was hired by the advertising company Needham Harper & Steers (1925-1986). That same year, Hughes married his former high school classmate Nancy Ludwig. Hughes worked in the advertising industry for several years. In 1974, Hughes was hired by the advertising agency Leo Burnett Worldwide. This company's most notable clients included the Pillsbury Company, StarKist, Heinz, Green Giant, and Philip Morris.
As a marketing agent, Hughes was assigned to handle Virginia Slims, a brand of cigarettes produced by Philip Morris. The assignment required him to regularly travel to New York City, where Philip Morris' headquarters were located. Hughes took the opportunity to visit the offices of the popular humor magazine "National Lampoon" (1970-1998) in New York City. He successfully negotiated a new position as a regular contributor to the magazine.
Hughes reportedly impressed the magazine's editors by producing quality work at a fast pace. Among his first short stories was "Vacation '58," based on his recollections of his family's vacations during his childhood. The story was eventually adapted into the road comedy film "National Lampoon's Vacation" (1983).
"National Lampoon" co-produced films written by their staff writers. Hughes provided the script for the black comedy "National Lampoon's Class Reunion" (1982), depicting a serial killer who targets his former classmates. The film was poorly received and under-performed at the box office, but it inspired Hughes to try to make a career as a screenwriter.
Hughes subsequently wrote the scripts for both "National Lampoon's Vacation" (1983) and "Mr. Mom" (1983), comedy films which were box office hits. He then signed a contract for three films with the studio Universal Pictures. He made his directing debut in the coming-of-age comedy film "Sixteen Candles" (1984). The film depicted the misadventures of high school sophomore Samantha "Sam" Baker (played by Molly Ringwald). It performed well at the box office, and was well-received by critics.
Hughes quickly established himself as a leading director of teen films. His films "The Breakfast Club" (1985), "Weird Science" (1985), and "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" (1986) are considered classics of the genre. To cover new ground, he then directed "Planes, Trains and Automobiles" (1987), featuring a duo of adult protagonists. The stars of the film were experienced comic actors Steve Martin and John Candy. The film was a hit. More importantly, Hughes and Candy became close friends. They would often work together in subsequent films.
Hughes' next film as a director was "She's Having a Baby" (1988), about the life of a newlywed couple. The film fared poorly financially and was considered rather "blasé" by critics. Hughes made a comeback with "Uncle Buck" (1989), about a lifelong bachelor who has to take care of his two nieces and a nephew. The film was a box office hit, earning about 80 million dollars at the box office.
Hughes' final film as a director was the comedy-drama "Curly Sue" (1991), about homeless con artist Bill Dancer (played by Jim Belushi) who desperately tries to keep the custody of his surrogate daughter. While moderately successful at the box office at the box office, the film was widely ridiculed for being overly sentimental.
In the 1990s, Hughes found success as a screenwriter, scripting several box office hits. Among his most notable films in this period were "Home Alone" (1990) and "Beethoven" (1992), with both films starting lucrative media franchises. Hughes also wrote the scripts of the sequels "Home Alone 2: Lost in New York" (1992) and "Home Alone 3" (1997). He also scripted a notable comic strip adaptation, "Dennis the Menace" (1993). It was based on the long-running comic strip "Dennis the Menace" (1951-) by Hank Ketcham (1920-2001).
In 1994, Hughes moved to the Chicago metropolitan area. At about that time, he started actively avoiding publicity. He rarely gave any interviews until the end of his life. In 1995, Hughes co-founded the production company Great Oaks Entertainment, which mainly handled co-production of Disney produced films. Hughes handled the scripting of two of the company's films: "101 Dalmatians" (1996) and "Flubber" (1997). Both were remakes of older films.
In 1997, Hughes severed his partnership with Ricardo Mestres. A year later, their final co-production, "Reach the Rock," was released. The film was scripted by Hughes, though it was uncharacteristically dramatic for a Hughes film. The film depicted the conflict between an alienated young man and a police chief.
In the 2000s, Hughes only scripted three more films. The most notable among them the romantic drama "Maid in Manhattan" (2002), a hit for protagonist Jennifer Lopez. It earned about 164 million dollars.
In August 2009, Hughes visited New York City with his wife. He wanted to visit one of his sons who lived there, and to meet his new grandson. On August 6, Hughes suffered a heart attack while walking in Manhattan. He was transported to Roosevelt Hospital, but died shortly after. He was fifty-nine years old.
Hughes was buried in Lake Forest Cemetery, a rural cemetery located in Lake Forest, Illinois. He was survived by his wife, their two children, and several grandchildren.- Actor
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Billy Bob Thornton was born on August 4, 1955 in Hot Springs, Arkansas, to Virginia Roberta (Faulkner), a psychic, and William Raymond (Billy Ray) Thornton, an educator, high school history teacher, and basketball coach (now deceased). He is the older brother of James Donald (Jimmy Don) (born in 1958 and now deceased) and John David (born in 1969). He has been married six times and has four children: daughter Amanda Brumfield, with Melissa Lee Gatlin (now Parish); sons William and Harry, both with Pietra Dawn Cherniak; and daughter Bella with Connie Angland.
Billy Bob began his artistic career as a musician, playing drums and singing in a band called Tres Hombres, which once opened for Hank Williams Jr.. In 1981, he moved to Los Angeles with childhood friend Tom Epperson to pursue an acting and writing career. On the side, Billy Bob also sought work as a singer and drummer. He and Epperson tried for years to sell their scripts but no one was buying. During those rough times, Billy Bob neglected his health and subsequently landed in the hospital with heart problems due to malnutrition. In 1992, Billy Bob starred in One False Move (1991), a movie he co-wrote with Epperson. The team finally received attention because of this work, which was very well received in Hollywood. His popularity increased steadily, especially after Sling Blade (1996) which he wrote, directed and in which he starred.