Coordinates	°′″N°′″N
Caption	Spielberg in 1999
Birth date	December 18, 1946
Birth place	Cincinnati, Ohio, United States
Birth name	Steven Allan Spielberg
Spouse
Children	6, including Sasha
Occupation	Film director, producer, screenwriter
Religion	Jewish
Networth	$3.0 billion (2011)
Years active	1963–present

Steven Allan Spielberg (born December 18, 1946) is an American film director, screenwriter, film producer, video game designer and studio executive. In a career spanning five decades, Spielberg's films have covered many themes and genres. Spielberg's early science-fiction and adventure films were seen as an archetype of modern Hollywood blockbuster filmmaking. In later years, his films began addressing such issues as the Holocaust, slavery, war and terrorism. He is considered one of the most popular and influential filmmakers in the history of cinema. He is also one of the co-founders of the DreamWorks movie studio.

Spielberg won the Academy Award for Best Director for Schindler's List (1993) and Saving Private Ryan (1998). Three of Spielberg's films—Jaws (1975), E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), and Jurassic Park (1993)—achieved box office records, each becoming the highest-grossing film made at the time. To date, the unadjusted gross of all Spielberg-directed films exceeds $8.5 billion worldwide. Forbes puts Spielberg's wealth at $3.0 billion. He spent his childhood in Haddon Township, New Jersey, where he saw one of his first films in a theater, as well as in Scottsdale, Arizona. Throughout his early teens, Spielberg made amateur 8 mm "adventure" films with his friends, the first of which he shot at the Pinnacle Peak Patio restaurant in Scottsdale. He charged admission (25 cents) to his home films (which involved the wrecks he staged with his Lionel train set) while his sister sold popcorn.

In 1958, he became a Boy Scout, and fulfilled a requirement for the photography merit badge by making a nine-minute 8 mm film entitled The Last Gunfight. Spielberg recalled years later to a magazine interviewer, "My dad's still-camera was broken, so I asked the scoutmaster if I could tell a story with my father's movie camera. He said yes, and I got an idea to do a Western. I made it and got my merit badge. That was how it all started." At age 13, Spielberg won a prize for a 40-minute war film he titled Escape to Nowhere which was based on a battle in east Africa. In 1963, at age 16, Spielberg wrote and directed his first independent film, a 140-minute science fiction adventure called Firelight (which would later inspire Close Encounters). The film, which had a budget of US$500, was shown in his local cinema and generated a profit of $1. He also made several WWII films inspired by his father's war stories.

After his parents divorced, he moved to Saratoga, California with his father. His three sisters and mother remained in Arizona. Although he attended Arcadia High School in Phoenix, Arizona for three years, Spielberg ended up graduating from Saratoga High School in 1965. It was during this time Spielberg attained the rank of Eagle Scout.

Spielberg attended synagogue as a young boy in Haddon Heights, NJ, an area which did not allow Jews before World War II. He attended Hebrew school from 1953 to 1957, in classes taught by Rabbi Albert L. Lewis, who would later be memorialized as the main character in Mitch Albom's, Have a Little Faith.

As a child, Spielberg faced difficulty reconciling being an Orthodox Jew with the perception of him by other children he played with. “It isn’t something I enjoy admitting,” he once said, “but when I was 7, 8, 9 years old, God forgive me, I was embarrassed because we were Orthodox Jews. I was embarrassed by the outward perception of my parents’ Jewish practices. I was never really ashamed to be Jewish, but I was uneasy at times. My grandfather always wore a long black coat, black hat and long white beard. I was embarrassed to invite my friends over to the house, because he might be in a corner davening [praying], and I wouldn’t know how to explain this to my WASP friends.” Spielberg also said he suffered from acts of anti-Semitic prejudice in his early life: he later said, "In high school, I got smacked and kicked around. Two bloody noses. It was horrible."

After moving to California, he applied to attend the film school at University of Southern California School of Theater, Film and Television two separate times, but was unsuccessful. He was a student subsequently of California State University, Long Beach. While attending Long Beach State in the 1960s, Spielberg became a member of Theta Chi Fraternity. His actual career began when he returned to Universal Studios as an unpaid, seven-day-a-week intern and guest of the editing department (uncredited). After Spielberg became famous, USC awarded him an honorary degree in 1994, and in 1996 he became a trustee of the university. In 2002, thirty-five years after starting college, Spielberg finished his degree via independent projects at CSULB, and was awarded a B.A. in Film Production and Electronic Arts with an option in Film/Video Production. However, the film fared poorly at the box office and received a limited release.

Studio producers Richard D. Zanuck and David Brown offered Spielberg the director's chair for Jaws, a thriller-horror film based on the Peter Benchley novel about an enormous killer shark. Spielberg has often referred to the gruelling shoot as his professional crucible. Despite the film's ultimate, enormous success, it was nearly shut down due to delays and budget over-runs.

But Spielberg persevered and finished the film. It was an enormous hit, winning three Academy Awards (for editing, original score and sound) and grossing more than $470 million worldwide at the box office. It also set the domestic record for box office gross, leading to what the press described as "Jawsmania." Jaws made him a household name, as well as one of America's youngest multi-millionaires, and allowed Spielberg a great deal of autonomy for his future projects. It was nominated for Best Picture and featured Spielberg's first of three collaborations with actor Richard Dreyfuss.

Mainstream breakthrough (1975–93)

Rejecting offers to direct Jaws 2, King Kong and Superman, Spielberg and actor Richard Dreyfuss re-convened to work on a film about UFOs, which became Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977). One of the rare films both written and directed by Spielberg, Close Encounters was a critical and box office hit, giving Spielberg his first Best Director nomination from the Academy as well as earning six other Academy Awards nominations. It won Oscars in two categories (Cinematography, Vilmos Zsigmond, and a Special Achievement Award for Sound Effects Editing, Frank E. Warner). This second blockbuster helped to secure Spielberg's rise. His next film, 1941, a big-budgeted World War II farce, wasn't nearly as successful and though it grossed over $92.4 million dollars worldwide (and did make a small profit for co-producing studios Columbia and Universal) it was seen as a disappointment, mainly with the critics.

Spielberg then revisited his Close Encounters project and, with financial backing from Columbia Pictures, released Close Encounters: The Special Edition in 1980. For this, Spielberg fixed some of the flaws he thought impeded the original 1977 version of the film and also, at the behest of Columbia, and as a condition of Spielberg revising the film, shot additional footage showing the audience the interior of the mothership seen at the end of the film (a decision Spielberg would later regret as he felt the interior of the mothership should have remained a mystery). Nevertheless, the re-release was a moderate success, while the 2001 DVD release of the film restored the original ending.

Next, Spielberg teamed with Star Wars creator and friend George Lucas on an action adventure film, Raiders of the Lost Ark, the first of the Indiana Jones films. The archaeologist and adventurer hero Indiana Jones was played by Harrison Ford (whom Lucas had previously cast in his Star Wars films as Han Solo). The film was considered a homage to the cliffhanger serials of the Golden Age of Hollywood. It became the biggest film at the box office in 1981, and the recipient of numerous Oscar nominations including Best Director (Spielberg's second nomination) and Best Picture (the second Spielberg film to be nominated for Best Picture). Raiders is still considered a landmark example of the action-adventure genre.

and Nancy Reagan after a showing of E.T. at the White House]] A year later, Spielberg returned to the science fiction genre with E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. It was the story of a young boy and the alien he befriends, who was accidentally left behind by his people and is trying to get back home. E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial went on to become the top-grossing film of all time. E.T. was also nominated for nine Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Director.

Between 1982 and 1985, Spielberg produced three high-grossing films: Poltergeist (for which he also co-wrote the screenplay), a big-screen adaptation of (for which he directed the segment "Kick The Can"), and The Goonies (Spielberg, executive producer, also wrote the story on which the screenplay was based).

His next directorial feature was the Raiders sequel Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Teaming up once again with Lucas and Ford, the film was plagued with uncertainty for the material and script. This film and the Spielberg-produced Gremlins led to the creation of the PG-13 rating due to the high level of violence in films targeted at younger audiences. In spite of this, Temple of Doom is rated PG by the MPAA, even though it is the darkest and, possibly, most violent Indy film. Nonetheless, the film was still a huge blockbuster hit in 1984. It was on this project that Spielberg also met his future wife, actress Kate Capshaw.

In 1985, Spielberg released The Color Purple, an adaptation of Alice Walker's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name, about a generation of empowered African-American women during depression-era America. Starring Whoopi Goldberg and future talk-show superstar Oprah Winfrey, the film was a box office smash and critics hailed Spielberg's successful foray into the dramatic genre. Roger Ebert proclaimed it the best film of the year and later entered it into his Great Films archive. The film received eleven Academy Award nominations, including two for Whoopi Goldberg and Oprah Winfrey. However, much to the surprise of many, Spielberg did not get a Best Director nomination. The Color Purple is the second of two Spielberg films not to be scored by John Williams, the first being Duel.

In 1987, as China began opening to the world, Spielberg shot the first American film in Shanghai since the 1930s, an adaptation of J. G. Ballard's autobiographical novel Empire of the Sun, starring John Malkovich and a young Christian Bale. The film garnered much praise from critics and was nominated for several Oscars, but did not yield substantial box office revenues. Reviewer Andrew Sarris called it the best film of the year and later included it among the best films of the decade.

After two forays into more serious dramatic films, Spielberg then directed the third Indiana Jones film, 1989's Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Once again teaming up with Lucas and Ford, Spielberg also cast actor Sean Connery in a supporting role as Indy's father. The film earned generally positive reviews and was another box office success, becoming the highest grossing film worldwide that year; its total box office receipts even topped those of Tim Burton's much-anticipated film Batman, which had been the bigger hit domestically. Also in 1989, he re-united with actor Richard Dreyfuss for the romantic comedy-drama Always, about a daredevil pilot who extinguishes forest fires. Spielberg's first romantic film, Always was only a moderate success and had mixed reviews.

In 1991, Spielberg directed Hook, about a middle-aged Peter Pan, played by Robin Williams, who returns to Neverland. Despite innumerable rewrites and creative changes coupled with mixed reviews, the film proved popular with audiences, making over $300 million worldwide (from a $70 million budget).

In 1993, Spielberg returned to the adventure genre with the film version of Michael Crichton's novel Jurassic Park, about a theme park with genetically engineered dinosaurs. With revolutionary special effects provided by friend George Lucas's Industrial Light & Magic company, the film would eventually become the highest grossing film of all time (at the worldwide box office) with $914.7 million. This would be the third time that one of Spielberg's films became the highest grossing film ever.

Spielberg's next film, Schindler's List, was based on the true story of Oskar Schindler, a man who risked his life to save 1,100 Jews from the Holocaust. Schindler's List earned Spielberg his first Academy Award for Best Director (it also won Best Picture). With the film a huge success at the box office, Spielberg used the profits to set up the Shoah Foundation, a non-profit organization that archives filmed testimony of Holocaust survivors. In 1997, the American Film Institute listed it among the 10 Greatest American Films ever Made (#9) which moved up to (#8) when the list was remade in 2007.

Since 1994

In 1994, Spielberg took a hiatus from directing to spend more time with his family and build his new studio, DreamWorks, with partners Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen. In 1997, he helmed the sequel to 1993's Jurassic Park with , which generated over $618 million worldwide despite mixed reviews, and was the second biggest hit of 1997 behind James Cameron's Titanic (which topped the original Jurassic Park to become the new recordholder for box office receipts).

His next film, Amistad, was based on a true story (like Schindler's List), specifically about an African slave rebellion. Despite decent reviews from critics, it did not do well at the box office. Spielberg released Amistad under DreamWorks Pictures, which issued all of his films from Amistad until Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull in May 2008 (see below).

In 1998, Spielberg re-visited Close Encounters yet again, this time for a more definitive 137-minute "Collector's Edition" that puts more emphasis on the original 1977 release, while adding some elements of the previous 1980 "Special Edition," but deleting the latter version's "Mothership Finale," which Spielberg regretted shooting in the first place, feeling it should have remained ambiguous in the minds of viewers.

His next theatrical release in that same year was the World War II film Saving Private Ryan, about a group of U.S. soldiers led by Capt. Miller (Tom Hanks) sent to bring home a paratrooper whose three older brothers were killed in the last twenty four hours of action in France. The film was a huge box office success, grossing over $481 million worldwide and was the biggest film of the year at the North American box office (worldwide it made second place after Michael Bay's Armageddon). Spielberg won his second Academy Award for his direction. The film's graphic, realistic depiction of combat violence influenced later war films such as Black Hawk Down and Enemy at the Gates. The film was also the first major hit for DreamWorks, which co-produced the film with Paramount Pictures (as such, it was Spielberg's first release from the latter that was not part of the Indiana Jones series). Later, Spielberg and Tom Hanks produced a TV mini-series based on Stephen Ambrose's book Band of Brothers. The ten-part HBO mini-series follows Easy Company of the 101st Airborne Division's 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment. The series won a number of awards at the Golden Globes and the Emmys.

In 2001, Spielberg filmed fellow director and friend Stanley Kubrick's final project, A.I. Artificial Intelligence which Kubrick was unable to begin during his lifetime. A futuristic film about a humanoid android longing for love, A.I. featured groundbreaking visual effects and a multi-layered, allegorical storyline, adapted by Spielberg himself. Though the film's reception in the US was relatively muted, it performed better overseas for a worldwide total box office gross of $236 million.

Spielberg and actor Tom Cruise collaborated for the first time for the futuristic neo-noir Minority Report, based upon the sci-fi short story written by Philip K. Dick about a Washington D.C. police captain in the year 2054 who has been foreseen to murder a man he has not yet met. The film received strong reviews with the review tallying website Rotten Tomatoes giving it a 92% approval rating, reporting that 200 out of the 218 reviews they tallied were positive. The film earned over $358 million worldwide. Roger Ebert, who named it the best film of 2002, praised its breathtaking vision of the future as well as for the way Spielberg blended CGI with live-action.

Spielberg's 2002 film Catch Me If You Can is about the daring adventures of a youthful con artist (played by Leonardo DiCaprio). It earned Christopher Walken an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. The film is known for John Williams' score and its unique title sequence. It was a hit both commercially and critically.

Spielberg collaborated again with Tom Hanks along with Catherine Zeta-Jones and Stanley Tucci in 2004's The Terminal, a warm-hearted comedy about a man of Eastern European descent who is stranded in an airport. It received mixed reviews but performed relatively well at the box office. In 2005, Empire magazine ranked Spielberg number one on a list of the greatest film directors of all time.

Also in 2005, Spielberg directed a modern adaptation of War of the Worlds (a co-production of Paramount and DreamWorks), based on the H. G. Wells book of the same name (Spielberg had been a huge fan of the book and the original 1953 film). It starred Tom Cruise and Dakota Fanning, and, as with past Spielberg films, Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) provided the visual effects. Unlike E.T. and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, which depicted friendly alien visitors, War of the Worlds featured violent invaders. The film was another huge box office smash, grossing over $591 million worldwide.

Spielberg's film Munich, about the events following the 1972 Munich Massacre of Israeli athletes at the Olympic Games, was his second film essaying Jewish relations in the world (the first being Schindler's List). The film is based on , a book by Canadian journalist George Jonas. It was previously adapted into the 1986 made-for-TV film Sword of Gideon. The film received strong critical praise, but underperformed at the U.S. and world box-office; it remains one of Spielberg's most controversial films to date. Munich received five Academy Awards nominations, including Best Picture, Film Editing, Original Music Score (by John Williams), Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Director for Spielberg. It was Spielberg's sixth Best Director nomination and fifth Best Picture nomination.

Spielberg directed Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, which wrapped filming in October 2007 and was released on May 22, 2008. This was his first film not to be released by DreamWorks since 1997. The film received generally positive reviews from critics, and has performed very well in theaters. As of May 10, 2010, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull has grossed $317 million domestically, and over $786 million worldwide.

Production credits

Since the mid-1980s Spielberg has increased his role as a film producer. He headed up the production team for several cartoons, including the Warner Brothers hits Tiny Toon Adventures, Animaniacs, Pinky and the Brain, Toonsylvania, and Freakazoid!, for which he collaborated with Jean MacCurdy and Tom Ruegger. Due to his work on these series, in the official titles, most of them say, "Steven Spielberg presents" as well as making numerous cameos on the shows. Spielberg also produced the Don Bluth animated features, An American Tail and The Land Before Time, which were released by Universal Studios. He also served as one of the executive producers of Who Framed Roger Rabbit and its three related shorts (Tummy Trouble, Roller Coaster Rabbit, Trail Mix-Up), which were all released by Disney, under both the Walt Disney Pictures and the Touchstone Pictures banners. He was furthermore, for a short time, the executive producer of the long-running medical drama ER. In 1989, he brought the concept of The Dig to LucasArts. He contributed to the project from that time until 1995 when the game was released. He also collaborated with software publishers Knowledge Adventure on the multimedia game Steven Spielberg's Director's Chair, which was released in 1996. Spielberg appears, as himself, in the game to direct the player. The Spielberg name provided branding for a Lego Moviemaker kit, the proceeds of which went to the Starbright Foundation. (1999)]]

In 1993, Spielberg acted as executive producer for the highly anticipated television series seaQuest DSV; a science fiction series set "in the near future" starring Roy Scheider (who Spielberg had directed in Jaws) and Jonathan Brandis akin to that aired on Sundays at 8:00 pm. on NBC. While the first season was moderately successful, the second season did less well. Spielberg's name no longer appeared in the third season and the show was cancelled mid way through it.

Spielberg served as an uncredited executive producer on The Haunting, The Prince of Egypt, Shrek, and Evolution. In 2005, he served as a producer of Memoirs of a Geisha, an adaptation of the novel by Arthur Golden, a film he was previously attached to as director. In 2006 Spielberg co-executive produced with famed filmmaker Robert Zemeckis a CGI children's film called Monster House, marking their eight collaboration together since 1990's Back to the Future Part III. He also teamed with Clint Eastwood for the first time in their careers, co-producing Eastwood's Flags of Our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima with Robert Lorenz and Eastwood himself. He earned his twelfth Academy Award nomination for the latter film as it was nominated for Best Picture. Spielberg served as executive producer for Disturbia and the Transformers live action film with Brian Goldner, an employee of Hasbro. The film was directed by Michael Bay and written by Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, and Spielberg continues to collaborate on the sequels, and . In 2011, he produced the J. J. Abrams science fiction thriller film Super 8 for Paramount Pictures.

Other major television series Spielberg produced were Band of Brothers, Taken and The Pacific. He was an executive producer on the critically acclaimed 2005 TV miniseries Into the West which won two Emmy awards, including one for Geoff Zanelli's score. For his 2010 miniseries The Pacific he teamed up once again with co-producer Tom Hanks, with Gary Goetzman also co-producing'. The miniseries is believed to have cost $250 million and is a 10-part war miniseries centered on the battles in the Pacific Theater during World War II. Writer Bruce McKenna, who penned several installments of (Band of Brothers), was the head writer. The Pacific was filmed at locations mostly in Australia, including Far North Queensland, Melbourne, and the Northern Territory and at Melbourne's Central City Studios.

In 2007, Steven Spielberg and Mark Burnett co-produced On the Lot a short-lived TV reality show about filmmaking. Despite this, he never gave up working on television. He currently serves as one of the executive producers on United States of Tara, a show created by Academy Award winner Diablo Cody which they developed together (Spielberg is uncredited as creator).

Acting credits

Steven Spielberg had cameo roles in The Blues Brothers, Gremlins, Vanilla Sky, and Austin Powers in Goldmember, as well as small uncredited cameos in a handful of other films, such as a life-station worker in Jaws. He also made numerous cameo roles in the Warner Brothers cartoons he produced, such as Animaniacs, and even made reference to some of his films. Spielberg voiced himself in the film Paul, and in one episode of Tiny Toon Adventures titled Buster and Babs Go Hawaiian.

Involvement in video games

Apart from being an ardent gamer Spielberg has had a long history of involvement in video games. In 2005 the director signed with Electronic Arts to collaborate on three games including an action game and an award winning puzzle game for the Wii called Boom Blox (and its 2009 sequel: Boom Blox Bash Party). Previously, he was involved in creating the scenario for the adventure game The Dig. In 1996, Spielberg worked on and shot original footage for a movie-making simulation game called "Steven Spielberg's Director's Chair". He is the creator of the Medal of Honor series by Electronic Arts. He is credited in the special thanks section of the 1998 video game .

Upcoming projects

In early 2009, Spielberg shot the first film in a planned trilogy of motion capture films based on The Adventures of Tintin written by Belgian artist Hergé, with Peter Jackson. , will not be released until December 23, 2011 due to the complexity of the computer animation involved. Jackson has been announced to direct the second film, which Spielberg will produce. Spielberg's next film War Horse, was shot in England in the summer of 2010, and will be released just five days after The Adventures of Tintin, on December 28, 2011. The film, based on the novel of the same name, is about the long friendship between a British boy and his horse Joey before and during World War I — a novel that was adapted into a hit play in London which is running on Broadway as of April 2011. It will be released and distributed by Disney, with whom DreamWorks has made a 30-picture deal. The novel was written by Michael Morpurgo and published in 1982. He will follow this with Lincoln, starring Daniel Day-Lewis and Sally Field. Based on Doris Kearns Goodwin's bestseller , the film will follow Lincoln's leadership during the years of the American Civil War. It is being written by Tony Kushner and will be shot in the fall of 2011 and released in the fourth quarter of 2012 by Disney's Touchstone Pictures division. Next after that will be Robopocalypse, based on the upcoming 2011 novel of the same name by Daniel H. Wilson. Set to shoot in early 2012, the film will follow humanity's battle against a robot uprising and is to be released by Touchstone Pictures in 2013.

In 2007, Spielberg reportedly tried to obtain the screen rights to make a film based on Microsoft's Halo series. In September 2008, Steven Spielberg bought film rights for John Wyndham's novel Chocky and is interested in directing it. In May 2009, Steven Spielberg bought the rights to the life story of Martin Luther King, Jr.. Spielberg will be involved not only as producer but also as a director. However, the purchase was made from the King estate, led by son Dexter, while the two other surviving children, the Reverend Bernice and Martin III, immediately threatened to sue, not having given their approvals to the project.

Spielberg is also producing a Fox TV series titled Terra Nova. Terra Nova will begin in the year 2149 when all life on the planet Earth is threatened with extinction resulting in scientists opening a door that allows people to travel back 85 million years to prehistoric times.

Themes

Spielberg's films often deal with several recurring themes. Most of his films deal with ordinary characters searching for or coming in contact with extraordinary beings or finding themselves in extraordinary circumstances. In an AFI interview in August 2000 Spielberg commented on his interest in the possibility of extra terrestrial life and how it has influenced some of his films. Spielberg described himself as feeling like an alien during childhood, and his interest came from his father, a science fiction fan, and his opinion that aliens would not travel light years for conquest, but instead curiosity and sharing of knowledge.

A strong consistent theme in his family-friendly work is a childlike, even naïve, sense of wonder and faith, as attested by works such as Close Encounters of the Third Kind, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Hook, and A.I. Artificial Intelligence. According to Warren Buckland, these themes are portrayed through the use of low height camera tracking shots, which have become one of Spielberg's directing trademarks. In the cases when his films include children (E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Empire of the Sun, Jurassic Park, etc.), this type of shot is more apparent, but it is also used in films like Munich, Saving Private Ryan, The Terminal, Minority Report, and Amistad. If one views each of his films, one will see this shot utilized by the director, notably the water scenes in Jaws are filmed from the low-angle perspective of someone swimming. Another child oriented theme in Spielberg's films is that of loss of innocence and coming-of-age. In Empire of the Sun, Jim, a well-groomed and spoiled English youth, loses his innocence as he suffers through World War II China. Similarly, in Catch Me If You Can Frank naively and foolishly believes that he can reclaim his shattered family if he accumulates enough money to support them.

The most persistent theme throughout his films is tension in parent-child relationships. Parents (often fathers) are reluctant, absent or ignorant. Peter Banning in Hook starts off in the beginning of the film as a reluctant married-to-his-work parent who through the course of his film regains the respect of his children. The notable absence of Elliott's father in E.T., is the most famous example of this theme. In Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, it is revealed that Indy has always had a very strained relationship with his father, who is a professor of medieval literature, as his father always seemed more interested in his work, specifically in his studies of the Holy Grail, than in his own son, although his father does not seem to realize or understand the negative effect that his aloof nature had on Indy (he even believes he was a good father in the sense that he taught his son "self reliance," which is not how Indy saw it). Even Oskar Schindler, from Schindler's List, is reluctant to have a child with his wife. Munich depicts Avner as a man away from his wife and newborn daughter. There are of course exceptions; Brody in Jaws is a committed family man, while John Anderton in Minority Report is a shattered man after the disappearance of his son. This theme is arguably the most autobiographical aspect of Spielberg's films, since Spielberg himself was affected by his parents' divorce as a child and by the absence of his father. Furthermore to this theme, protagonists in his films often come from families with divorced parents, most notably E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (protagonist Elliot's mother is divorced) and Catch Me If You Can (Frank Abagnale's mother and father split early on in the film). Little known also is Tim in Jurassic Park (early in the film, another secondary character mentions Tim and Lex's parents' divorce). The family often shown divided is often resolved in the ending as well. Following this theme of reluctant fathers and father figures, Tim looks to Dr. Alan Grant as a father figure. Initially, Dr. Grant is reluctant to return those paternal feelings to Tim. However, by the end of the film, he has changed, and the kids even fall asleep with their heads on his shoulders.

Most of his films are generally optimistic in nature. Critics frequently accuse his films of being overly sentimental, though Spielberg feels it is fine as long as it is disguised. The influence comes from directors Frank Capra and John Ford.

Contemporaries

In terms of casting and production itself, Spielberg has a known penchant for working with actors and production members from his previous films. For instance he has cast Richard Dreyfuss in several films: Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and Always. Aside from his role as Indiana Jones, Spielberg also cast Harrison Ford as a headteacher in E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (though the scene was ultimately cut). Although Spielberg directed him only once (in Raiders of the Lost Ark, for which he voiced many of the animals), veteran voice actor Frank Welker has lent his voice in a number of productions Spielberg has executively produced from Gremlins to its sequel , as well as The Land Before Time (and lending his voice to its sequels which Spielberg had no involvement in), Who Framed Roger Rabbit, and television shows such as Tiny Toons, Animaniacs, and SeaQuest DSV. Recently Spielberg has used Tom Hanks on several occasions and has cast him in Saving Private Ryan, Catch Me If You Can, and The Terminal. Spielberg also has collaborated with Tom Cruise twice on Minority Report and War of the Worlds. Spielberg has also cast Shia LaBeouf in four films: Transformers, Eagle Eye, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, and . Spielberg prefers working with production members with whom he has developed an existing working relationship. An example of this is his production relationship with Kathleen Kennedy who has served as producer on all his major films from E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial to the recent Munich. Other working relationships include Allen Daviau, a childhood friend and cinematographer who shot the early Spielberg film Amblin and most of his films up to Empire of the Sun; Janusz Kamiński who has shot every Spielberg film since Schindler's List (see List of film director and cinematographer collaborations); and the film editor Michael Kahn who has edited every film directed by Spielberg from Close Encounters to Munich (except E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial). Most of the DVDs of Spielberg's films have documentaries by Laurent Bouzereau.

A famous example of Spielberg working with the same professionals is his long time collaboration with John Williams and the use of his musical scores in all of his films since The Sugarland Express (except The Color Purple and ). One of Spielberg's trademarks is his use of music by John Williams to add to the visual impact of his scenes and to try and create a lasting picture and sound of the film in the memories of the film audience. These visual scenes often uses images of the sun (e.g. Empire of the Sun, Saving Private Ryan, the final scene of Jurassic Park, and the end credits of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (where they ride into the sunset), of which the last two feature a Williams score at that end scene. Spielberg is a contemporary of filmmakers George Lucas, Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, John Milius, and Brian De Palma, collectively known as the "Movie Brats". Aside from his principal role as a director, Spielberg has acted as a producer for a considerable number of films, including early hits for Joe Dante and Robert Zemeckis.

Personal life

Marriages and children

From 1985 to 1989 Spielberg was married to actress Amy Irving. In their 1989 divorce settlement, she received $100 million from Spielberg after a judge controversially vacated a prenuptial agreement written on a napkin. Their divorce was recorded as the third most costly celebrity divorce in history. Following the divorce, Spielberg and Irving shared custody of their son, Max Samuel.

Spielberg subsequently developed a relationship with actress Kate Capshaw, whom he met when he cast her in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. They married on October 12, 1991. Capshaw is a convert to Judaism. They currently move among their four homes in Pacific Palisades, California; New York City; Quelle Farm, Georgica Pond in East Hampton, NY; and Naples, Florida.

There are seven children in the Spielberg-Capshaw family:

Jessica Capshaw (born August 9, 1976) – daughter from Kate Capshaw's previous marriage to Robert Capshaw

Max Samuel Spielberg (born June 13, 1985) – son from Spielberg's previous marriage to actress Amy Irving

Theo Spielberg (born 1988) – son adopted by Capshaw before her marriage to Spielberg, who later also adopted him Sasha Rebecca Spielberg (born May 14, 1990, Los Angeles) Sawyer Avery Spielberg (born March 10, 1992, Los Angeles)

Mikaela George (born February 28, 1996) – adopted with Kate Capshaw

Destry Allyn Spielberg (born December 1, 1996)

Wealth

Forbes magazine places Spielberg's personal net worth at $3.0 billion.

Recognition

In 2002, Spielberg was one of eight flagbearers who carried the Olympic Flag into Rice-Eccles Stadium at the Opening Ceremonies of the 2002 Winter Olympic Games in Salt Lake City. In 2006, Premiere listed him as the most powerful and influential figure in the motion picture industry. Time listed him as one of the . At the end of the 20th century, Life named him the most influential person of his generation.

Starbright

In 1991 Steven Spielberg co-founded Starbright with Randy Aduana—a foundation dedicated to improving sick children's lives through technology-based programs focusing on entertainment and education. In 2002 Starbright merged with the Starlight Foundation forming what is now today the Starlight Children's Foundation.

Politics

Spielberg usually supports U.S. Democratic Party candidates. He has donated over $800,000 for the Democratic party and its nominees. He has been a close friend of former President Bill Clinton and worked with the President for the USA Millennium celebrations. He directed an 18-minute film for the project, scored by John Williams and entitled The American Journey. It was shown at America's Millennium Gala on December 31, 1999, in the National Mall at the Reflecting Pool at the base of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.

Spielberg resigned as a member of the national advisory board of the Boy Scouts of America in 2001 because of his disapproval of the organization's anti-homosexuality stance.

Spielberg joined Jeffrey Katzenberg and Haim Saban in endorsing the re-election of Hollywood friend Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Republican Governor of California, on August 7, 2006.

In 2007 the Arab League voted to boycott Spielberg's movies after he donated $1 million for relief efforts in Israel during the 2006 Lebanon War.

On February 20, 2007, Spielberg, Katzenberg, and David Geffen invited Democrats to a fundraiser for Barack Obama. However, on June 14, 2007, Spielberg endorsed Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) for President. While Geffen and Katzenberg supported Obama, Spielberg was always a supporter of Hillary Clinton. However Spielberg directed a video for Obama at the DNC in August 2008 and attended Obama's inauguration.

In February 2008, Spielberg pulled out of his role as advisor to the 2008 Summer Olympics in response to the Chinese government's inaction over the War in Darfur. Spielberg said in a statement that "I find that my conscience will not allow me to continue business as usual." It also said that "Sudan's government bears the bulk of the responsibility for these on-going crimes, but the international community, and particularly China, should be doing more.." The International Olympic Committee respected Spielberg's decision, but IOC president Jacques Rogge admitted in an interview that "[Spielberg] certainly would have brought a lot to the opening ceremony in terms of creativity." Spielberg's statement drew criticism from Chinese officials and state-run media calling his criticism "unfair".

In September 2008, Spielberg and his wife offered their support to same-sex marriage, by issuing a statement following their donation of $100,000 to the "No on Proposition 8" campaign fund, a figure equal to the amount of money Brad Pitt donated to the same campaign less than a week prior.

Hobbies

Spielberg is an avid film buff, and, when not shooting a picture, he will indulge in "movie orgies" (watching many over a single weekend). He sees almost every major summer blockbuster in theaters if not preoccupied and enjoys most of them; "If I get pleasure from anything, I can't think of it as dumb or myself as shallow [...] I'll probably go late to that movie and go, 'What the dickens was everybody complaining about, that wasn't so bad!'".

Since playing Pong while filming Jaws in 1974, Spielberg has been an avid video gamer. He owns a Wii, a PlayStation 3, a PSP, and Xbox 360, and enjoys playing first-person shooters such as the Medal of Honor series and . He has also criticized the use of cut scenes in games, calling them intrusive, and feels making story flow naturally into the gameplay is a challenge for future game developers.

Stalking

In 2001, Spielberg was stalked by conspiracy theorist and former social worker Diana Napolis. She accused him, along with actress Jennifer Love Hewitt, of controlling her thoughts through "cybertronic" technology and being part of a satanic conspiracy against her. Napolis was committed for life in a mental institution before pleading guilty to stalking and released on probation with a condition that she have no contact with either Spielberg or Hewitt.

Spielberg was a target of the 2002 white supremacist terror plot.

Jonathan Norman was arrested after making two attempts to enter Spielberg's Pacific Palisades home in June and July 1997. Norman was jailed for 25 years in California. Spielberg, told the court: "Had Jonathan Norman actually confronted me, I genuinely, in my heart of hearts, believe that I would have been raped or maimed or killed."

Achievements

, 1999.]] Spielberg has won three Academy Awards. He has been nominated for six Academy Awards for the category of Best Director, winning two of them (Schindler's List and Saving Private Ryan), and seven of the films he directed were up for the Best Picture Oscar (Schindler's List won). In 1987 he was awarded the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award for his work as a creative producer.

Drawing from his own experiences in Scouting, Spielberg helped the Boy Scouts of America develop a merit badge in cinematography. The badge was launched at the 1989 National Scout Jamboree, which Spielberg attended, and where he personally counseled many boys in their work on requirements.

That same year, 1989, saw the release of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. The opening scene shows a teenage Indiana Jones in scout uniform bearing the rank of a Life Scout. Spielberg stated he made Indiana Jones a Boy Scout in honor of his experience in Scouting. For his career accomplishments and service to others, Spielberg was awarded the Distinguished Eagle Scout Award.

Steven Spielberg received the AFI Life Achievement Award in 1995.

In 1998 he was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit with Ribbon of the Federal Republic of Germany. The Award was presented to him by President Roman Herzog in recognition of his film Schindler's List and his Shoa-Foundation.

In 1999, Spielberg received an honorary degree from Brown University. Spielberg was also awarded the Department of Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service by Secretary of Defense William Cohen at the Pentagon on August 11, 1999; Cohen presented the award in recognition of Spielberg's film Saving Private Ryan.

In 2001, he was honored as an honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE) by Queen Elizabeth II.

In 2004 he was admitted as knight of the Légion d'honneur by president Jacques Chirac. On July 15, 2006, Spielberg was also awarded the at the Summer Gala of the Chicago International Film Festival, and also was awarded a Kennedy Center honour on December 3. The tribute to Spielberg featured a short, filmed biography narrated by Tom Hanks and included thank-yous from World War II veterans for Saving Private Ryan, as well as a performance of the finale to Leonard Bernstein's Candide, conducted by John Williams (Spielberg's frequent composer).

In November 2007, he was chosen for a Lifetime Achievement Award to be presented at the sixth annual Visual Effects Society Awards in February 2009. He was set to be honored with the Cecil B. DeMille Award at the January 2008 Golden Globes; however, the new, watered-down format of the ceremony resulting from conflicts in the 2007–08 writers strike, the HFPA postponed his honor to the 2009 ceremony. In 2008, Spielberg was awarded the Légion d'honneur.

In June 2008, Spielberg received Arizona State University's Hugh Downs Award for Communication Excellence.

Spielberg received an honorary degree at Boston University's 136th Annual Commencement on May 17, 2009. In October 2009 Steven Spielberg received the Philadelphia Liberty Medal; presenting him with the medal was former US president and Liberty Medal recipient Bill Clinton. Special guests included Whoopi Goldberg, Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell and Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter.

Praise and criticism

Film

, in the Gala Dinner held on Wednesday, December 9th, 2009 at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, California, honoring Steven Spielberg.]] In 2005, Steven Spielberg was rated the greatest film director of all time by Empire Magazine.

After watching the unconventional, off-center camera techniques of Jaws, Alfred Hitchcock praised "young Spielberg," saying "He's the first one of us who doesn't see the proscenium arch." Or, to paraphrase, he was the first mainstream director to think outside the visual dynamics of the theater.

Some of Spielberg's most famous fans include film legends Robert Aldrich, Ingmar Bergman, Werner Herzog, Stanley Kubrick, Akira Kurosawa, David Lean, Sidney Lumet, Roman Polanski, Martin Scorsese, Francois Truffaut and Zhang Yimou.

Subsequently, Spielberg's movies have also influenced many directors that followed, including J.J Abrams, Paul Thomas Anderson, Neill Blomkamp, James Cameron, Guillermo del Toro, Roland Emmerich, David Fincher, Peter Jackson, Kal Ng, Robert Rodriguez, John Sayles, Ridley Scott, John Singleton, Kevin Smith, Steven Soderbergh and Quentin Tarantino.

British film critic Tom Shone has said of Spielberg, "If you have to point to any one director of the last twenty-five years in whose work the medium of film was most fully itself – where we found out what it does best when left to its own devices, it has to be that guy."

However, Spielberg is not without his critics—many of whom complain that his films are overly sentimental and tritely moralistic. In his book Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex 'n' Drugs 'n' Rock 'n' Roll Generation Saved Hollywood, Peter Biskind summarized the views of Spielberg's detractors, accusing the director of "infantilizing the audience, reconstituting the spectator as child, then overwhelming him and her with sound and spectacle, obliterating irony, aesthetic self-consciousness, and critical reflection."

Critics of mainstream film such as Ray Carney and American artist and actor Crispin Glover (who starred in the Spielberg-produced Back to the Future and also sued Spielberg for using Glover's likeness in Back to the Future Part II) claim that Spielberg's films lack depth and do not take risks.

The late film critic, Pauline Kael, who had championed Spielberg's films in the 1970s, expressed disappointment in his later development, stating that "he’s become, I think, a very bad director.... And I’m a little ashamed for him, because I loved his early work.... [H]e turned to virtuous movies. And he’s become so uninteresting now.... I think that he had it in him to become more of a fluid, far-out director. But, instead, he’s become a melodramatist."

Imre Kertész, Hungarian Jewish author, Nazi concentration camp survivor, and winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, criticized Spielberg's depiction of the Holocaust in Schindler's List as kitsch, saying "I regard as kitsch any representation of the Holocaust that is incapable of understanding or unwilling to understand the organic connection between our own deformed mode of life and the very possibility of the Holocaust."

French New Wave filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard stated that he holds Spielberg partly responsible for the lack of artistic merit in mainstream cinema and accused Spielberg of using his film Schindler's List to make a profit of tragedy while Schindler's wife lived in poverty in Argentina. In defense of Spielberg, critic Roger Ebert said "Has Godard or any other director living or dead done more than Spielberg, with his Holocaust Project, to honor and preserve the memories of the survivors?"

Stephen Rowley wrote an extensive essay about Spielberg and his career in Senses of Cinema. In it he discussed Spielberg's strengths as a film maker, saying "there is a welcome complexity of tone and approach in these later films that defies the lazy stereotypes often bandied about his films" and that "Spielberg continues to take risks, with his body of work continuing to grow more impressive and ambitious", concluding that he has only received "limited, begrudging recognition" from critics .

In August 2007, Ai Weiwei, artistic designer for the Beijing Olympic Stadium Bird's Nest accused those choreographing the Olympic opening ceremony, including Spielberg, of failing to live up to their responsibility as artists. Ai said, "It's disgusting. I don't like anyone who shamelessly abuses their profession, who makes no moral judgment."

Filmography

Awards and nominations

'''Academy Awards:

1978: Best Director (Close Encounters of the Third Kind, nominated)

1982: Best Director (Raiders of the Lost Ark, nominated)

1983: Best Director (E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, nominated)

1983: Best Picture (E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, nominated)

1986: Best Picture (The Color Purple, nominated)

1987: Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award (won)

1994: Best Director (Schindler's List, won)

1994: Best Picture (Schindler's List, won)

1999: Best Director (Saving Private Ryan, won)

1999: Best Picture (Saving Private Ryan, nominated)

2006: Best Director (Munich, nominated)

2006: Best Picture (Munich, nominated)

2007: Best Picture (Letters from Iwo Jima, nominated)

'''BAFTA Awards:

1976: Best Direction (Jaws, nominated)

1979: Best Direction (Close Encounters of the Third Kind, nominated)

1979: Best Screenplay (Close Encounters of the Third Kind, nominated)

1983: Best Direction (E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, nominated)

1983: Best Film (E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, nominated)

1986: Academy Fellowship (won)

1994: Best Film (Schindler's List, won)

1994: David Lean Award for Direction (Schindler's List, won)

1999: Best Film (Saving Private Ryan, nominated)

1999: David Lean Award for Direction (Saving Private Ryan, nominated)

'''Cannes Film Festival

1974: Best Screenplay (The Sugarland Express, won)

1974: Golden Palm (The Sugarland Express, nominated)

'''Critics Choice Awards:

1999: Best Director (Saving Private Ryan, won)

2003: Best Director (Catch Me If You Can and Minority Report, won)

2006: Best Director (Munich, nominated)

'''Directors Guild of America:

1976: Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures (Jaws, nominated)

1978: Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures (Close Encounters of the Third Kind, nominated)

1982: Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures (Raiders of the Lost Ark, nominated'')

1983: Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures (E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, nominated)

1986: Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures (The Color Purple, won); this was the first time a director won this award without receiving an Oscar nomination for Best Director.

1988: Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures (Empire of the Sun, nominated)

1994: Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures (Schindler's List, won)

1998: Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures (Amistad, nominated)

1999: Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures (Saving Private Ryan, won); this win makes Spielberg the only individual to win this award three times.

2000: The D.W. Griffith Award for Lifetime Achievement

2006: Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures (Munich, nominated)

'''Golden Globes:

1976: Best Director (Jaws, nominated)

1978: Best Director (Close Encounters of the Third Kind, nominated)

1978: Best Screenplay (Close Encounters of the Third Kind, nominated)

1982: Best Director (Raiders of the Lost Ark, nominated)

1983: Best Picture – Drama (E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, won)

1983: Best Director (E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, nominated)

1986: Best Director (The Color Purple, nominated)

1994: Best Picture – Drama (Schindler's List, won)

1994: Best Director (Schindler's List, won)

1998: Best Director (Amistad, nominated)

1999: Best Picture – Drama (Saving Private Ryan, won)

1999: Best Director (Saving Private Ryan, won)

2002: Best Director (AI: Artificial Intelligence, nominated)

2006: Best Director (Munich, nominated)

2008: Cecil B. DeMille Award (won)

'''Hasty Pudding Theatricals:

1983: Man of the Year (won)

'''Hollywood Walk of Fame:

2003: Star on the Walk of Fame (won)

'''NBR Award:

1987: Best Director (Empire of the Sun, won)

2001: Billy Wilder Award (won)

'''Primetime Emmys:

1986: Outstanding Directing in a Drama Series (Amazing Stories for episode "The Mission", nominated)

1991: Outstanding Animated Program – One Hour or Less (Tiny Toon Adventures for episode "The Looney Beginning", nominated)

1995: Outstanding Animated Program – One Hour or Less (Tiny Toon Adventures: Night Ghoulery, nominated)

1996: Outstanding Animated Program – One Hour or Less (A Pinky & the Brain Christmas Special, won)

2002: Outstanding Non-Fiction Special – Informational (We Stand Alone Together, nominated)

2002: Outstanding Miniseries (Band of Brothers, won)

2003: Outstanding Miniseries (Taken, won)

2006: Outstanding Miniseries (Into the West, nominated)

'''Producers Guild of America:

1994: Motion Picture Producer of the Year (Schindler's List, won)

1998: Motion Picture Producer of the Year (Amistad, nominated)

1998: Vision Award (Amistad, won)

1999: Motion Picture Producer of the Year (Saving Private Ryan, won)

1999: Milestone Award (won)

2000: PGA Hall of Fame – Motion Pictures (E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, won)

2002: Television Producer of the Year – Longform (Band of Brothers, won)

2006: Television Producer of the Year – Longform (Into the West, nominated)

'''Saturn Awards:

1978: Best Director (Close Encounters of the Third Kind, won); tied with George Lucas for Star Wars

1978: Best Writing (Close Encounters of the Third Kind, won); tied with George Lucas for Star Wars

1982: Best Director (Raiders of the Lost Ark, won)

1983: Best Science Fiction Film (E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, won)

1983: Best Director (E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, nominated)

1985: Best Director (Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, nominated)

1994: Best Science Fiction Film (Jurassic Park, won)

1994: Best Director (Jurassic Park, won)

1994: President's Award (won)

1998: Best Director (The Lost World: Jurassic Park, nominated)

1999: Best Action/Adventure/Thriller Film (Saving Private Ryan, won)

2002: Best Science Fiction Film (AI: Artificial Intelligence, won)

2002: Best Director (AI: Artificial Intelligence, nominated)

2002: Best writing (AI: Artificial Intelligence, won)

2003: Best Science Fiction Film (Minority Report, won)

2003: Best Director (Minority Report, won)

2006: Best Director (War of the Worlds, nominated)

2009: Best Director (Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, nominated)

, at the distributition of Kennedy Center Honors.]]

'''Venice Film Festival:

1993: Career Golden Lion (won)

2001: Future Film Festival Digital Award (AI: Artificial Intelligence, won)

'''Writers Guild of America:

1975: Best Comedy Written Directly for the Screen (The Sugarland Express, nominated)

1978: Best Drama Written Directly for the Screen (Close Encounters of the Third Kind, nominated)

Other

2009 Liberty Medal

2006 Kennedy Center Honors

2001 Knight Commander, Order of the British Empire (Honorary)

2003 Knight Grand Cross Order of Merit of the Italian Republic

1998 Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany

References

Further reading

External links

Steven Spielberg Bibliography (via UC Berkeley)

Official website of Dreamworks

Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation (founded by Spielberg)

Time 100: Steven Spielberg

Spielberg at 60 – Empire

Fansite and forum "Playmountain," the successor of "Spielbergfilms"

Spielberg's financial success in a single image

Category:Kennedy Center honorees Category:Science Fiction Hall of Fame inductees Category:Chevaliers of the Légion d'honneur Category:Honorary Knights Commander of the Order of the British Empire Category:Knight Commanders of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany Category:Producers who won the Best Picture Academy Award Category:National Humanities Medal recipients Category:Best Director Academy Award winners Category:Best Director Golden Globe winners Category:Akira Kurosawa Award winners Category:Daytime Emmy Award winners Category:BAFTA winners (people) Category:Distinguished Eagle Scouts Category:Science fiction fans Category:Film theorists Category:Film studio executives Category:Special effects people Category:English-language film directors Category:American film actors Category:American film editors Category:American film producers Category:American film directors Category:American screenwriters Category:American television producers Category:American humanitarians Category:American art collectors Category:American billionaires Category:American Jews Category:Jews and Judaism in Cincinnati, Ohio Category:People from Cincinnati, Ohio Category:People from East Hampton (town), New York Category:People from Haddon Township, New Jersey Category:People from Los Angeles, California Category:People from Scottsdale, Arizona Category:California State University, Long Beach alumni Category:1946 births Category:Living people Category:Short film directors Category:California Democrats

Coordinates	°′″N°′″N
Name	Lucenzo
Background	solo_singer
Born
Origin	France of Portuguese origin
Genre	Reggaeton, latin, world
Occupation	Singer, songwriter, producer
Years active	2000–present
Label	Universal Music
Associated acts	Big Ali, Don Omar
Url	www.lucenzo.fr

Lucenzo (born Filipe Oliveira, May 27, 1983 in Bordeaux, France) is a singer, songwriter and producer of Portuguese origin. Lucenzo is signed to Universal Music record label.

He is best known for his recent dance hit "Vem dançar kuduro" featuring Big Ali. Puerto Rican reggaetón singer Don Omar released a Spanish language version of the song under the title "Danza Kuduro" with Lucenzo.

Career

Lucenzo released his debut single in 2008, a French/multilingual reggae/reggaeton song entitled "Emigrante del mundo". Signed to Scopio Music, the song became a French radio hit in tens of radio stations including Fun Radio. It reached #1 on "Radio Latina" and stayed in Top 5 on the station for 42 weeks. It was followed in 2009 by "Dame reggaeton", which both became a #1 as well on radio Latina.

But it was with his bilingual English/Portuguese dance hit single "Vem dançar kuduro" in collaboration with Big Ali that he found big success in Europe, kuduro being originally an Angolan type of music also very popular in Portugal. The single reached #2 in the French Top 50 charts (based solely on actual sales of singles) and #1 on the French Club 40 charts (based on actual plays in 80 discos in France). It was also a Top 40 hit in Switzerland reaching #31.

An alternative Spanish language version by Don Omar with Lucenzo has been released on 15 August 2010 entitled "Danza Kuduro". The accompanying music video was released on 17 August 2010. It is also featured on Don Omar's compilation album Meet the Orphans.

Discography

Singles

Notes

1. Although the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart comprise up to a hundred songs, the Bubbling Under Hot 100 Singles act as an extension to each chart. Thus, songs that have peaked up to these extension charts are listed in this discography under the Hot 100 with values over a hundred.

   References

   External links

2. Official Website
3. Official MySpace
4. Official Blog
5. Official YouTube Channel
6. Official Facebook Page
7. Official Twitter Page

Category:French singers Category:French people of Portuguese descent Category:Living people Category:1983 births

Coordinates	°′″N°′″N
Playername	Cristiano Ronaldo
Fullname	Cristiano Ronaldo dos Santos Aveiro
Dateofbirth	February 05, 1985
Cityofbirth	Funchal, Madeira
Countryofbirth	Portugal
Height
Position	Winger/Forward
Currentclub	Real Madrid
Clubnumber	7
Youthyears1	1993–1995 |youthclubs1 = Andorinha
Youthyears2	1995–1997 |youthclubs2 = Nacional
Youthyears3	1997–2001 |youthclubs3 = Sporting CP
Years1	2001–2003 |clubs1 = Sporting CP |caps1 = 25 |goals1 = 3
Years2	2003–2009 |clubs2 = Manchester United |caps2 = 196 |goals2 = 84
Years3	2009– |clubs3 = Real Madrid |caps3 = 47 |goals3 = 48
Nationalyears1	2001–2002 |nationalteam1 = Portugal U17 |nationalcaps1 = 9 |nationalgoals1 = 6
Nationalyears2	2003 |nationalteam2 = Portugal U20 |nationalcaps2 = 5 |nationalgoals2 = 1
Nationalyears3	2002–2003 |nationalteam3 = Portugal U21 |nationalcaps3 = 6 |nationalgoals3 = 3
Nationalyears4	2004 |nationalteam4 = Portugal U23 |nationalcaps4 = 3 |nationalgoals4 = 1
Nationalyears5	2003– |nationalteam5 = Portugal |nationalcaps5 = 79 |nationalgoals5 = 25
Pcupdate	22:49, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
Ntupdate	22:38, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Cristiano Ronaldo dos Santos Aveiro, OIH, (; born 5 February 1985), Ronaldo holds the distinction of being the first player to win the FIFA Puskás Award, an honour handed by FIFA to the best goal of the year. He scored that goal from 40 yards out, against Porto in a UEFA Champions League quarter-final match, while still playing for Manchester United.

Ronaldo began his career as a youth player for Andorinha, where he played for two years, then moved to Nacional. In 1997, he made a move to Portuguese giants Sporting CP. Ronaldo's precocious talent caught the attention of Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson and he signed the 18-year-old for £12.24 million in 2003. The following season, Ronaldo won his first club honour, the FA Cup, and reached the Euro 2004 final with Portugal, in which tournament he scored his first international goal.

In 2008, Ronaldo won the Champions League with United, and was named player of the tournament. He was named the FIFPro World Player of the Year and the FIFA World Player of the Year, in addition to becoming Manchester United's first Ballon d'Or winner in 40 years. Three-time Ballon d'Or winner Johan Cruyff said in an interview on 2 April 2008, "Ronaldo is better than George Best and Denis Law, who were two brilliant and great players in the history of United."

Early life

Ronaldo was born on 5 February 1985 in Santo António, a neighbourhood of Funchal, Madeira, the youngest child of Maria Dolores dos Santos Aveiro, a cook, and José Dinis Aveiro, a municipal gardener. His second given name, "Ronaldo", was chosen after then-U.S. president Ronald Reagan, who was his father's favourite actor. He has one older brother, Hugo, and two older sisters, Elma and Liliana Cátia.

Club career

Early career

At the age of eight, Ronaldo played for amateur team Andorinha, where his father was the kit man. In 1995, Ronaldo signed with local club Nacional, and, after a title-winning campaign, he went on a three-day trial with Sporting CP, who subsequently signed him for an undisclosed sum.

Sporting CP

Ronaldo joined Sporting's other youth players who trained at the Academia Sporting, the club's football academy, in Alcochete. He became the only player ever to play for Sporting's U-16, U-17, U-18, B-team, and first team, all within one season. He scored two goals in his Sporting debut against Moreirense, while featuring for Portugal in the 2002 European Under-17 Championship.

When he was 15, Ronaldo was diagnosed with a racing heart, a condition that might have forced him to give up playing football. The Sporting staff were made aware of the condition and Ronaldo's mother gave her authorisation for him to go into hospital. While there, he had an operation in which a laser was used to cauterise the area of his heart that was causing the problem. The surgery took place in the morning and Ronaldo was discharged from hospital by the end of the afternoon; he resumed training only a few days later.

He was first spotted by then-Liverpool manager Gérard Houllier at the age of 16, but Liverpool declined to take him on because they decided he was too young and needed some time to develop his skills. However, he came to the attention of Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson in the summer of 2003, when Sporting defeated United 3–1 in the inauguration of the Estádio José Alvalade in Lisbon. Ronaldo's performance impressed the Manchester United players, who urged Ferguson to sign him.

Manchester United

2003–2006

Ronaldo became Manchester United's first-ever Portuguese player when he signed for €15 million (£12.24 million) after the 2002–03 season. He requested the number 28 (his number at Sporting), as he did not want the pressure of living up to the expectation linked to the number 7 shirt, which had previously been worn by players such as George Best, Bryan Robson, Eric Cantona, and David Beckham. "After I joined, the manager asked me what number I'd like. I said 28. But Ferguson said 'No, you're going to have No. 7,' and the famous shirt was an extra source of motivation. I was forced to live up to such an honour."

Ronaldo made his team debut as a 60th-minute substitute in a 4–0 home victory over Bolton Wanderers. He scored his first goal for Manchester United with a free kick in a 3–0 win over Portsmouth on 1 November 2003. Ronaldo ended his first season in English football by scoring the opening goal in United's 3-0 FA Cup final victory over Millwall

He scored United's 1000th Premier League goal on 29 October 2005 in a 4–1 loss to Middlesbrough. He scored ten goals in all competitions, and fans voted him to his first FIFPro Special Young Player of the Year award in 2005.

Ronaldo won his second trophy in English football in the 2005-06 season, scoring the third goal in Manchester United's 4-0 Football League Cup final victory over Wigan Athletic.

2006–2009

The 2006-2007 season proved to be the breakout year for Ronaldo, as he broke the 20 goal barrier for the first time and picked up his first league title with Manchester United.

In November and December 2006, Ronaldo received consecutive Barclays Player of the Month honours, becoming only the third player in Premier League history to do so after Dennis Bergkamp in 1997 and Robbie Fowler in 1996. He scored his 50th Manchester United goal against city rivals Manchester City on 5 May 2007 as United claimed their first Premier League title in four years, and he was voted into his second consecutive FIFPro Special Young Player of the Year award at the end of the year.

Despite rumours circulating in March 2007 that Real Madrid were willing to pay an unprecedented €80 million (£54 million) for Ronaldo, he signed a five-year, £120,000-a-week (£31 million total) extension with United on 13 April, making him the highest-paid player in team history.

Ronaldo amassed a host of personal awards for the season. He won the PFA Players' Player of the Year and PFA Young Player of the Year awards, joining Andy Gray (in 1977) as the only players to receive this honour. In April, he completed the treble by winning the PFA Fans' Player of the Year. Ronaldo was also one of eight Manchester United players named in the 2006–07 PFA Premier League Team of the Year.

celebrating a goal]] Ronaldo's 2007–08 season began with a red card for a headbutt on Portsmouth player Richard Hughes during United's second match of the season, for which he was punished with a three-match ban. Ronaldo said he had "learned a lot" from the experience and would not let players "provoke" him in the future. After scoring the only goal in a Champions League away match against Sporting, Ronaldo also scored the injury-time winner in the return fixture as Manchester United topped their Champions League group.

He finished as the runner-up to Kaká for the 2007 Ballon d'Or, and was third in the running for the FIFA World Player of the Year award, behind Kaká and Lionel Messi.

Ronaldo scored his first hat trick for Manchester United in a 6–0 win against Newcastle United at Old Trafford on 12 January 2008, bringing Manchester United up to the top of the Premier League table. He scored his twenty-third league goal of the season in a 2–0 win against Reading, equalling his entire total for the 2006–07 season. During a 1–1 Champions League first knockout round draw against Lyon on 20 February, an unidentified Lyon supporter continuously aimed a green laser at Ronaldo and United teammate Nani, prompting an investigation by UEFA. One month later, Lyon were fined CHF5,000 (£2,427) for the incident.

On 19 March 2008, Ronaldo captained United for the first time in his career in a home win over Bolton, scoring both goals in the 2–0 victory. The second of the goals was his 33rd of the campaign, which set a new club single-season scoring record by a midfielder and thus topped George Best's forty-year-old total of 32 goals in the 1967–68 season. Ronaldo scored another brace in a 4–0 win over Aston Villa on 29 March, which at the time gave him 35 goals in 37 domestic and European matches as both a starter and substitute. Ronaldo's scoring streak was rewarded with his becoming the first winger to win the 2007–08 European Golden Shoe, finishing eight points ahead of Mallorca's Dani Güiza.

In the 2007–08 Champions League final on 21 May against league rivals Chelsea, Ronaldo scored the opening goal after 26 minutes, which was negated by a Chelsea equaliser in the 45th minute as the match ended 1–1 after extra time. His misfire in the penalty shoot-out put Chelsea in position to win the trophy, but John Terry shot wide right after slipping on the pitch surface, and Manchester United emerged victorious 6–5 on penalties. Ronaldo was named the UEFA Fans' Man of the Match, and wrapped up the campaign with a career-high 42 goals in all competitions, falling four short of Denis Law's team-record mark of 46 in the 1963–64 season.

and rivals Liverpool.]] On 5 June 2008, Sky Sports reported that Ronaldo had expressed an interest in moving to Real Madrid if they offered him the same amount of money the team had allegedly promised him earlier in the year. Manchester United filed a tampering complaint with FIFA on 9 June over Madrid's alleged pursuit of Ronaldo, but FIFA declined to take any action. Speculation that a transfer would happen continued until 6 August, when Ronaldo confirmed that he would stay at United for at least another year.

Ronaldo underwent ankle surgery at the Academic Medical Center in Amsterdam on 7 July. He returned to action on 17 September in United's UEFA Champions League goalless group-stage draw with Villarreal as a substitute for Park Ji-Sung, and scored his first overall goal of the season in a 3–1 League Cup third round win over Middlesbrough on 24 September.

In a 5–0 win over Stoke City on 15 November 2008, Ronaldo scored his 100th and 101st goals in all competitions for Manchester United, both from free kicks. The goals also meant that Ronaldo had now scored against each of the other 19 teams in the Premier League at the time. On 2 December, Ronaldo became Manchester United's first Ballon d'Or recipient since George Best in 1968. He finished with 446 points, 165 ahead of runner-up Lionel Messi. He was awarded the Silver Ball after finishing with two goals as United won the Club World Cup on 19 December.

On 8 January 2009, Ronaldo was uninjured in a single-car accident in which he wrote off his Ferrari 599 GTB Fiorano in a tunnel along the A538 near Manchester Airport. A breathalyser test he gave to police officers at the scene was negative, and he attended training later that morning. Four days later, he became the first Premier League player ever to be named the FIFA World Player of the Year, in addition to being the first Portuguese player to win the award since Luís Figo in 2001.

Ronaldo scored his first Champions League goal of the season, and first since the final against Chelsea, in a 2–0 victory over Internazionale that sent United into the quarter-finals. In the second leg against Porto, Ronaldo scored a 40-yard game-winning goal as United advanced to the semi-finals. He later called it the best goal he had ever scored. Ronaldo participated in his second consecutive Champions League final, but made little impact in United's 2–0 loss to Barcelona. He finished with 53 appearances in all competitions, which was four higher than the previous year, but scored sixteen fewer goals (26) than his career-best total of 42 from the previous season.

On 11 June, Manchester United accepted an unconditional offer of £80 million from Real Madrid for Ronaldo after it was revealed that he again had expressed his desire to leave the club. It was confirmed by a representative of the Glazer family that the sale was fully condoned by Ferguson. When Ronaldo had eventually completed his transfer to Real, he expressed his gratitude towards Ferguson for helping him develop as a player, saying, "He's been my father in sport, one of the most important factors and most influential in my career."

Real Madrid

2009–10 season

and city rivals Atlético Madrid.]] On 26 June 2009, Real Madrid confirmed that Ronaldo would join the club on 1 July 2009 from Manchester United for £80 million, after agreeing terms and signing a six-year contract. Ronaldo's contract is worth €11 million per year He was presented to the world media as a Real Madrid player on 6 July, where he was handed the number 9 jersey. The shirt was presented to him by Madrid legend Alfredo di Stéfano. Ronaldo was welcomed by 80,000 fans at his presentation at the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium, surpassing Diego Maradona's record of 75,000 fans when he was presented in Italy, after he was transferred from Barcelona to Napoli in 1984.

Ronaldo made his Madrid debut on 21 July in a 1–0 win over Shamrock Rovers. His first goal came one week later with a penalty in Madrid's 4–2 LDU Quito. On 29 August, Ronaldo capped his La Liga debut with a goal, scoring Real's second from the penalty spot in a 3–2 home win against Deportivo La Coruña. On 15 September, Ronaldo scored two free-kicks in a 5-2 away victory over Zürich, his first Champions League goals for Real. He broke a Madrid club record when he scored in a league match against Villarreal and thus became the first ever player to score in his first four La Liga appearances.

An ankle injury suffered on 10 October, while Ronaldo was on international duty with Portugal against Hungary, kept him out until 25 November, which in turn caused him to miss both of Madrid's Champions League group stage matches against Milan. Ronaldo made his first post-injury start in a 1–0 El Clásico defeat to Barcelona on 29 November. On 6 December, he was sent off for the first time in his Madrid career in Madrid's 4–2 victory against Almería, a match which also saw him miss a penalty. He was carded first for removing his shirt during a goal celebration, then for kicking out at an opponent three minutes later. Ronaldo and Gonzalo Higuaín scored 53 league goals during the course of the season and became Real's highest scoring league duo in their history.

2010–11 season

With the departure of Raúl during the summer of 2010, Ronaldo was handed the number 7 jersey. On 23 October 2010, Ronaldo scored four goals against Racing Santander, the most goals he has ever scored in a single match. This completed a goalscoring run of six consecutive matches (3 La Liga, 1 Champions League, 2 international) in which Ronaldo scored in each match, totalling eleven goals, which is the most Ronaldo has scored in a single month. His final match of the year saw him score a hat-trick on a 8-0 trashing of Levante on the Copa del Rey.

Ronaldo began the 2011 with a very promising outlook, specially since Real Madrid acknowledge him to have broken many goalscoring records, prevously settled and held by classic players such as Di Stéfano, Hugo Sánchez or Alday. His year took-off by scoring two vital goals on a tight 3-2 victory over Getafe. He then consolidated his massive performance by scoring a hat-trick and assisting Kaká to score his first league goal after his return from injury, on a 4-2 victory over Villareal on January 9. One game away from the middle of the season, Ronaldo held very clear perspectives of breaking Telmo Zarra and Hugo Sánchez's record of 38 League goals in a single season, since he was the league's top scorer with 22 goals, even above Lionel Messi.

International career

Ronaldo earned his first cap for Portugal in a 1–0 victory against Kazakhstan on 20 August 2003. He was called up for Euro 2004, scoring in a 2–1 group stage loss to eventual champions Greece and in a 2–1 semi-final win over the Netherlands. He was named in the team of the tournament despite finishing with only two goals. He also represented Portugal at the 2004 Summer Olympics.

2006 World Cup

Ronaldo was the second-highest scorer in FIFA World Cup qualification in the European zone with seven goals,

During a quarter-final match against England on 1 July 2006, Ronaldo's United teammate Wayne Rooney was sent off for stamping on Portugal defender Ricardo Carvalho. The English media speculated that Ronaldo had influenced referee Horacio Elizondo's decision by aggressively complaining, after which he was seen in replays winking at the Portuguese bench following Rooney's dismissal. After the match, Ronaldo insisted that Rooney was a friend and that he was not pushing for Rooney to be sent off. On 4 July, Elizondo clarified that the red card was due to Rooney's infraction and not the fracas between Rooney and Ronaldo that followed.

The angry reaction from the English press caused Ronaldo to consider leaving United, and he allegedly told Spanish sports daily Marca that he wished to move to Real Madrid. In response to the speculation, Ferguson sent Portuguese assistant manager Carlos Queiroz to speak to Ronaldo in attempt to change his mind, a sentiment that was shared by Rooney. Ronaldo stayed, and signed his new five-year extension in April 2007.

Ronaldo was booed during Portugal's semi-final defeat to France, and missed out on the competition's Best Young Player award due to a negative e-mail campaign from England fans. Though the online vote only affected the nomination process, FIFA's Technical Study Group awarded the honour to Germany's Lukas Podolski, citing Ronaldo's behaviour as a factor in the decision.

Post-World Cup

One day after his 22nd birthday, Ronaldo captained Portugal for the first time in a friendly against Brazil on 6 February 2007. This move was in honour of Portuguese Football Federation president Carlos Silva, who had died two days earlier. Portugal coach Luiz Felipe Scolari explained, "Mr. Silva asked me to make [Ronaldo] captain as a gesture... [he] is too young to be captain, but Mr. Silva asked me, and now he is no longer with us."

Euro 2008

Ronaldo scored eight goals in Portugal's UEFA Euro 2008 qualifying campaign, behind Poland's Ebi Smolarek, but finished with only one goal in the tournament as Portugal were eliminated in the quarter-finals by Germany. When Carlos Queiroz was named Portugal's new coach in July 2008, he appointed Ronaldo as team captain.

2010 World Cup

On 15 June 2010, in Portugal's opening 2010 FIFA World Cup match against Côte d'Ivoire, Ronaldo was tackled by right-back Guy Demel, which led to an argument and both being booked. The next day, Portugal contacted FIFA to suggest that Ronaldo's yellow card be rescinded since he was "pulled into" the confrontation after having already moved away from the spot where he was tackled, but the appeal was rejected.

Ronaldo failed to make an impact in the World Cup; after going scoreless in the qualifiers, his only goal came in Portugal's 7–0 group stage thrashing of North Korea on 21 June, which marked his first international goal in sixteen months. Portugal were ultimately eliminated by Spain in the round of sixteen.

International goals

Career statistics

Club

Statistics accurate as of match played 13 January 2011

Honours

Club

;Manchester United

Individual

Orders

Officer of the Order of Infante Dom Henrique

Medal of Merit, Order of the Immaculate Conception of Vila Viçosa (House of Braganza)

Personal life

Ronaldo's father, José Dinis Aveiro, died of an alcoholism-related liver condition in September 2005 at age 52 when Ronaldo was 20. Ronaldo's mother and Manchester United coach have stated that he does not drink alcohol as a result, and he has received libel damages over a Daily Mirror article that reported him drinking heavily in a nightclub while recovering from an injury in July 2008.

Ronaldo's autobiography, titled Moments, was published in December 2007. Along with one of his sisters, Ronaldo opened a fashion boutique under the name "CR7" (his initials and shirt number). There are currently two CR7 store locations, both of which are in Portugal; one in Lisbon and the other in Madeira.

On 9 June 2010, Madame Tussauds London unveiled Ronaldo's waxwork as part of the build-up to the World Cup. Ronaldo joins fellow footballers Steven Gerrard, Pelé and David Beckham at the event's venue.

Ronaldo announced that he had become a father on 3 July 2010. His official Facebook and Twitter pages reference the birth of his son and request privacy. is in full custody of Ronaldo and under the care of his mother and sisters.

On August 2010, Ronaldo hit 10 million fans on Facebook and in doing so made history by becoming the first non-US personality ever to achieve that kind of success on the social networking site.

Since the start of 2010 he has been dating Russian model Irina Shayk.

Philanthropy

Television footage of the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami showed an 8 year old boy wearing a number 7 Portuguese football jersey who was stranded for 19 days after his family was killed. Following this, Ronaldo visited Aceh in Indonesia to raise funds for rehabilitation and reconstruction.

In support of the victims of the 2010 Madeira flood, Ronaldo is to play in a charity match in Madeira between the Portuguese Liga club Porto and players from Madeiran based Portuguese Liga clubs Marítimo and Nacional.

References

External links

Real Madrid official profile

2010 FIFA World Cup profile

ESPN Profile

Category:1985 births Category:Living people Category:Portuguese footballers Category:Association football wingers Category:Portugal international footballers Category:Primeira Liga players Category:Sporting Clube de Portugal footballers Category:Premier League players Category:First Division/Premier League topscorers Category:Manchester United F.C. players Category:UEFA Euro 2004 players Category:Olympic footballers of Portugal Category:Footballers at the 2004 Summer Olympics Category:2006 FIFA World Cup players Category:Madeiran footballers Category:Expatriate footballers in England Category:UEFA Euro 2008 players Category:European Footballer of the Year winners Category:FIFA World Player of the Year winners Category:World Soccer Magazine World Player of the Year winners Category:Real Madrid C.F. players Category:La Liga footballers Category:Portuguese Roman Catholics Category:Portuguese expatriates in Spain Category:Expatriate footballers in Spain Category:Golden Globes (Portugal) winners Category:2010 FIFA World Cup players

Coordinates	°′″N°′″N
Name	Big Ali
Background	solo_singer
Genre	Hip hop, rap
Occupation	Singer-songwriter, DJ, MC, rapper
Years active	2001 - present
Label	Up Music
Url	www.bigali.fr

Big Ali (earlier Breakingz) is an American singer-songwriter, DJ, and rapper born in Queens, New York and based in Paris, France since 2001. He is signed to Up Music, a Warner Music label, and has released his debut album Louder in May 2009 on the record label. The album featuring numerous French and international producers and artists. "Hit the Floor" taken from the album became his first big single in October 2008 followed by "Neon Music" released in March 2009. A third single "Universal Party followed in November 2009.

In collaborations, the joint 2006 single "Rock This Party (Everybody Dance Now)" by Sinclar and Cutee-B featuring Dollarman, Big Ali & Makedah stayed at #1 for 4 weeks on the Ultratop 40 Belgian charts. In 2007, it became a #1 hit in Billboard's Hot Dance Club Songs.

The latest collaboration he did with Serbian singer Dara Bubamara.

Career

Big Ali wrote his first lyrics at the age of 8. He created a crew of DJs called "World Famous Vynil Squad". He also had radio and TV collaborations such radio show "Full Thrtottle" with national US emissions in led by his friend Fatman Scoop and is creator of the show Jumpoff hosted by Ed Lover and Doctor Dre. He hosted his own show "The Magic Hour" at the Vassar College in New York.

Big Ali has also worked in club venues in the United States, Asia, Latin America and Europe and is very famous in France. He participated as an MC at the Cannes’ Film Festival, and is at the Saint Tropez VIP Room every year. He has worked with many successful French artists such as Kool Shen, Amine, Jean Roch, Kore & Scalp, Leslie, Magic System, Bob Sinclar with Rohff on the hit "Dirty Hous" and more recently Sinik and others. Big Ali hosts one Saturday per month the show "Show Time" on Radio NRJ.

Discography

Albums

2008: Louder

Tracklist:

# L# Hit the Floor (feat. Dollarman) # Hunger # Shake It Up (feat. Kat DeLuna) # Neon Music 2009 (Remix 2009 by Soundshakerz) # Make Some Noïse # Burn It Up (feat. Luckie D) # Universal Party (feat. Gramps Morgan) # Can We Cut # Dancehall Queen (feat. Beenie Man) # High Energy # Drop (feat. One World) # Here We Go Now # Fun Time (feat. Chaka Demus & Pliers) # Des Larmes De Sang (feat. Florent Pagny) # I'm Sorry

Solo singles

2008: "Hit the floor" (feat. Dollarman)

2009: "Burn It Up" (feat. Lucky D)

2009: "Neon Music"

2009: "Universal Party" (feat. Gramps Morgan)

Featuring

2006: Midas Touch ( with Matt Houston ) on the album Phoenix 2006

2006: "Rock This Party (Everybody Dance Now)" (with Bob Sinclar, Cutee-B featuring Dollarman, Big Ali & Makedah)

2007: "C'est chaud, ça brule" (with Magic System)

2007: "Dirty House" Rhoff with Big Ali) in the album La Résurrection (Banlieue South Remix)

2008: "Stronger" (English version) / "Plus fort" (French version) (with Anggun) from her album Elevation

2008: "Habibi" (with Leslie and Amar)

2008: "Bienvenue chez les Bylkas" (with Sinik, Cheb Bilal)

2009: "No Stress" (with Laurent Wolf et DJ Snake)

2009: "New New New" (with Bob Sinclar) (Big Ali appears only in the music video for the song)

2009: "Groove On" (remix) (with Timati and Snoop Dogg)

2010: "Ce matin va être une pure soirée" (avec Fatal Bazooka, PZK, Dogg SoSo et DJ Chris Prolls)

2010: "Des larmes de sang" (with Florent Pagny)

2010: "Vem dançar kuduro" (with Lucenzo)

2010: "Calypso" (DJ Snake feat. Big Ali)

2010: "Playground" (with DJ Assad and Willy William)

2010: "Make Some Noise" (with Claude N'Joya and Richard Bahericz)

2010: "Ciao Amore" (with Dara Bubamara)

References

External links

Big Ali Official website

Big Ali MySpace site

Big Ali Twitter page

Category:2000s singers Category:2010s singers Category:American DJs Category:American male singers Category:American singer-songwriters Category:Living people Category:People from Queens Category:Rappers from New York City