John Magrosky's List: Steven Spielberg

• Corliss, Richard
  Dutka, Elaine
  Worrell, Denise
  CREDIT, NO
• Time. 7/15/1985, Vol. 126 Issue 2, p54. 9p.
• He is, of course, the world's most successful picturemaker. E.T. The ExtraTerrestrial (1982) has earned more money than any other movie in history. Jaws (1975) is fifth on the all-time list, Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) seventh, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) eighth, Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) 15th, and Gremlins (1984), which he did not direct but developed and ''presented,'' 17th. Only his pal George Lucas, with whom he collaborated on Raiders and Indiana Jones, approaches that patch of box-office ionosphere; and Lucas, at least since Star Wars eight years ago, has delegated the directing of his films to other hands. Spielberg is very & hands-on; as Director Martin Scorsese puts it, ''Lucas became so powerful that he didn't have to direct. But directing is what Steven has to do.'' Spielberg admits,
• I think I've got ball bearings for brains; these ideas are slipping and sliding across each other all the time.
• My problem is that my imagination won't turn off. I wake up so excited I can't eat breakfast. I've never run out of energy. It's not like OPEC oil; I don't worry about a premium going on my energy. It's just always been there.
• The fateful day when this movie-mad child got close to his Hollywood dream came in the summer of 1965, when 17-year-old Steven, visiting his cousins in Canoga Park, took the studio tour of Universal Pictures. ''The tram wasn't stopping at the sound stages,'' Steven says. ''So during a bathroom break I snuck away and wandered over there, just watching. I met a man who asked what I was doing, and I told him my story. Instead of calling the guards to throw me off the lot, he talked with me for about an hour. His name was Chuck Silvers, head of the editorial department. He said he'd like to see some of my little films, and so he gave me a pass to get on the lot the next day. I showed him about four of my 8-mm films. He was very impressed. Then he said, 'I don't have the authority to write you any more passes, but good luck to you.' '' The next day a young man wearing a business suit and carrying a briefcase strode past the gate guard, waved and heaved a silent sigh. He had made it! ''It was my father's briefcase,'' Spielberg says. ''There was nothing in it but a sandwich and two candy bars. So every day that summer I went in my suit and hung out with directors and writers and editors and dubbers. I found an office that wasn't being used, and became a squatter. I went to a camera store, bought some plastic name titles and put my name in the building directory: Steven Spielberg, Room 23C.'' Two years later, Spielberg enrolled at California State University, Long Beach, but it is safe to say he matriculated at Universal U. Cramming 15 1/2 units into two frenetic days of classes a week, he was able to spend three days on the studio lot, asking executives to watch his films. ''They were embarrassed when

4 more annotations...

• Travers, Peter
• Rolling Stone. 5/3/2007, Issue 1025/1026, p94-96. 2p.
• So are you optimistic about what the future holds in this new digital world?

1 more annotation...

• Gutiérrer, Peter
• Screen Education. Winter2012, Issue 66, p40-45. 6p.

• Since his ambitious first feature film, The Sugarland Express, in 1974, Spielberg has seldom made a false step. With Jaws, released June 20, 1975, he changed forever the Hollywood calculus.
• Spielberg has explored the deepest core of the human comedy, becoming in the process the most successful moviemaker in history. "He is the storyteller of our time," says Jeffrey Katzenberg, one of the cofounders with Spielberg of DreamWorks SKG studio in 1994. "I don't think there is anyone who has reached as many people with their stories as he has."