Walter Parkes

Walter F. Parkes (born April 15, 1951) is an American film producer, screenwriter, and former studio head.

Life and career

Parkes was born in Bakersfield, California.WarGames, co-written by Parkes with Lawrence Lasker and Walon Green, garnered a Best Original Screenplay Oscar nomination. Parkes and Lasker co-produced several films, including Sneakers and Awakenings, a Best Picture Oscar nominee in 1990. Other films Parkes produced or on which he served as executive producer include, the Men in Black series, The Kite Runner, Golden Globe-winning Sweeney Todd, Dinner for Schmucks, Gladiator, Minority Report, Catch Me If You Can, The Ring, The Terminal, Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, Road to Perdition, A.I. Artificial Intelligence, Deep Impact, Twister, The Legend of Zorro and Amistad.

In 1994, Parkes was named President of Steven Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment and later that year, he and his wife and business partner Laurie MacDonald were tapped to help create the DreamWorks SKG motion picture studio. As the studio's president, Parkes, in partnership with Laurie MacDonald, oversaw development and production of all DreamWorks' film projects, including three consecutive Best Picture Oscar winners: American Beauty, Gladiator and A Beautiful Mind — the latter two in partnership with Universal Studios. Other films produced during their tenure include: Cameron Crowe's Almost Famous, Robert Zemeckis' What Lies Beneath, Adam McKay's Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, Michael Mann's Collateral, and Steven Spielberg's Academy Award- and Golden Globe-winning drama Saving Private Ryan, which was the top-grossing film domestically of 1998.

Laurie MacDonald

Laurie MacDonald is a film producer. She is married to Walter F. Parkes and is a production executive of DreamWorks. Her credits include:

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Robert Redford

Charles Robert Redford Jr. (born August 18, 1936), known professionally as Robert Redford, is an American actor, director, producer, businessman, environmentalist, and philanthropist. He is the founder of the Sundance Film Festival. He has received two Academy Awards: one in 1981 for directing Ordinary People, and one for Lifetime Achievement in 2002. In 2010, he was made a chevalier of the Légion d'Honneur.

Redford's career began in 1960 as a guest star on numerous TV programs, including The Untouchables, Perry Mason, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, and The Twilight Zone, among others. He earned an Emmy nomination as Best Supporting Actor for his performance in The Voice of Charlie Pont (1962). His biggest Broadway success was as the stuffy newlywed husband of Elizabeth Ashley in Neil Simon's Barefoot in the Park (1963).

Redford made his film debut in War Hunt (1962). His role in Inside Daisy Clover (1965) won him a Golden Globe for best new star. He starred in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), which was a huge success and made him a major star. In 1972, he had a critical and box office hit with Jeremiah Johnson (1972), and in 1973 had the biggest hit of his career, the blockbuster crime caper The Sting, for which he was also nominated for an Academy Award. The popular and acclaimed All the President's Men (1976) was a landmark film for Redford.

Phil Alden Robinson

Phil Alden Robinson (born March 1, 1950) is an American film director and screenwriter whose films include Field of Dreams, Sneakers, and The Sum of All Fears.

Life and career

Robinson was born in Long Beach, New York, the son of Jessie Frances and S. Jesse Robinson, who was a drama critic for the New York Journal American and a media coordinator for the liquor division of the National Distillers & Chemical Corp. in New York. Robinson graduated from Union College in Schenectady, New York with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and received an Honorary Doctorate of Letters from Union College in 1996.

Robinson directed the baseball film, Field of Dreams (1989). It earned Robinson nominations for the Directors Guild of America Award, the Writers Guild of America Award, and an Oscar for Best Screenplay Adaptation (the film was also nominated for Best Picture and Best Original Score Oscars). Other accolades for the film include the Christopher Award, and Premiere Magazine's Readers Poll for Best Picture of 1989.

Sidney Poitier

Sir Sidney Poitier, KBE (/ˈpwɑːtjeɪ/ or /ˈpwɑːti.eɪ/; born February 20, 1927), is a Bahamian-American actor, film director, author and diplomat.

In 1964, Poitier became the first Bahamian and first African-American to win an Academy Award for Best Actor, for his role in Lilies of the Field. The significance of these achievements was bolstered in 1967, when he starred in three successful films, all of which dealt with issues involving race and race relations: To Sir, with Love; In the Heat of the Night; and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, making him the top box-office star of that year. In 1999, the American Film Institute named Poitier among the Greatest Male Stars of classic Hollywood cinema, ranking 22nd on the list of 25.

Poitier has directed a number of films, including A Piece of the Action, Uptown Saturday Night, Let's Do It Again, with Bill Cosby; Stir Crazy, starring Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder; and Ghost Dad, also with Cosby. In 2002, thirty-eight years after receiving the Best Actor Award, Poitier was chosen by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to receive an Academy Honorary Award, in recognition of his "remarkable accomplishments as an artist and as a human being."