Steven Spielberg

Early life

Steven Allan Spielberg was born on December 18, 1946, in Cincinnati, Ohio, the eldest child and only son of four children. His mother, Leah Adler (née Posner), was a concert pianist who ran a kosher dairy restaurant, and his father, Arnold, was an electrical engineer involved in the development of computers. His immediate family were Reform Jewish/Orthodox Jewish. Spielberg's paternal grandparents were Ukrainian Jews; his grandmother Rebecca (née Chechi), was from Sudylkiv, and his grandfather Shmuel Spielberg was from Kamianets-Podilskyi. Spielberg has three younger sisters: Anne, Sue, and Nancy. At their home in Cincinnati, his grandmother taught English to Holocaust survivors. They, in turn, taught him numbers: One man in particular, I kept looking at his numbers–his number tattooed on his forearm ... he started – you know, when–during the dinner break, when everybody was eating and not learning, he would point to the numbers. And he would say, that is a two, and that is a four. And then he'd say, and this is a eight, and that's a one. And I'll never forget this. And he said, and that's a nine. And then he crooked his arm and inverted his arm and said, and see, it becomes a six. It's magic. And now it's a nine, and now it's a six, and now it's a nine and now it's a six. And that's really how I learned my numbers for the first time ... the irony of all that, and the gift of that lesson, never really dawned on me until I was much older. In 1952, his family moved to Haddon Township, New Jersey, after his father was hired by RCA. Spielberg attended Hebrew school from 1953 to 1957, in classes taught by Rabbi Albert L. Lewis. In early 1957, the family moved to Phoenix, Arizona. Spielberg had a bar mitzvah ceremony when he was thirteen. His family was involved in the synagogue and had many Jewish friends. Of the Holocaust, he said that his parents "talked about it all the time, and so it was always on my mind". His father had lost between sixteen and twenty relatives in the Holocaust. Spielberg found it difficult accepting his heritage; he said: "It isn't something I enjoy admitting ... but when I was seven, eight, nine 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." Spielberg was the target of antisemitism: "In high school, I got smacked and kicked around. Two bloody noses. It was horrible." He gradually followed Judaism less during adolescence, after his family had moved to various neighborhoods and found themselves to be the only Jews.

Spielberg recalls his parents taking him to see Cecil B. DeMille's The Greatest Show on Earth (1952). He had never seen a movie before, and thought they were taking him to the circus. He was terrified by the movie's train crash, and at age 12, recreated it with his Lionel trains and filmed it. He recalls: "The trains went around and around, and

Personal life

Spielberg met actress Amy Irving in 1976 when she auditioned for Close Encounters of the Third Kind. After meeting her, Spielberg told his co-producer Julia Phillips, "I met a real heartbreaker last night." Although she was too young for the role, she and Spielberg began dating and she eventually moved into what she described as his "bachelor funky" house. They broke up in 1979. In 1984, they renewed their romance and married in November 1985. Their son, Max, had been born on June 13 of that year. In 1989, the couple divorced; they agreed to live near each other to share custody of their son. Their divorce settlement is one of the most expensive in history. Spielberg met actress Kate Capshaw when he cast her in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom in 1984. They married on October 12, 1991; Capshaw converted to Judaism before their marriage. Spielberg said he rediscovered "the honor of being a Jew" when they married. He said, "Kate is Protestant and she insisted on converting to Judaism. She spent a year studying, did the mikveh, the whole thing. She chose to do a full conversion before we were married in 1991, and she married me after becoming a Jew. I think that, more than anything else, brought me back to Judaism." He credits her for the family's level of observance; "This shiksa goddess has made me a better Jew than my own parents", he said. Capshaw was commissioned by the National Portrait Gallery to paint a portrait of Spielberg. Her 2025 artwork, The Picture Maker, includes the portrait and a video projection displaying excerpts from films shot by Spielberg during his youth. He has five children with Capshaw: Sasha Rebecca Spielberg (born May 14, 1990), Sawyer Avery Spielberg (born March 10, 1992), and Destry Allyn Spielberg (born December 1, 1996), and two adopted children: Theo Spielberg (born August 21, 1988), and Mikaela George Spielberg (born February 28, 1996). He also has a stepdaughter, Jessica Capshaw (born August 9, 1976). He and his family live in Pacific Palisades, California and East Hampton, New York. He is the godfather of Drew Barrymore and Gwyneth Paltrow. Spielberg was diagnosed with dyslexia at age 60. In 2022, at age 75, Spielberg was diagnosed with COVID-19 but recovered. In 2013, Spielberg purchased the 282-foot (86 m) mega-yacht The Seven Seas for US$182 million. During his ownership it was also available for charter at US$1.2 million per month, making it one of the most expensive charters on the market at the time. In 2021, the Canadian steel mogul Barry Zekelman bought it for US$150 million and rechristened the ship Man of Steel. Thereafter, Spielberg ordered a new 358-foot (109 m) Seven Seas. In December 2022, Spielberg was a guest on Desert Island Discs for BBC Radio 4, choosing for his luxury item an H-8 Bolex Camera.

Career

Bridge of Spies (2015) is a Cold War thriller based on the 1960 U-2 incident, focusing on James B. Donovan's negotiations with the Soviets for the release of pilot Gary Powers after his aircraft was shot down over Soviet territory. It was written by Matt Charman and the Coen brothers and starred Tom Hanks, Mark Rylance, Amy Ryan and Alan Alda. It was filmed in the fall of 2014 in New York City, Berlin and Wrocław. Bridge of Spies was popular with critics and Rylance won Best Supporting Actor at the 88th Academy Awardss. The BFG (2016) is an adaptation of Roald Dahl's children's book, starring Mark Rylance as the titular Big Friendly Giant and newcomer Ruby Barnhill. DreamWorks bought the rights in 2010, and John Madden had intended to direct. It was the last film written by E.T. screenwriter Melissa Mathison. It was co-produced and released by Walt Disney Pictures, marking the first Disney-branded film directed by Spielberg. The BFG premiered out-of-competition at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival, and received a wide release in the US on July 1, 2016. The BFG received fair reviews; Michael Phillips of The Chicago Tribune compared certain scenes to the works of Alfred Hitchcock and Stanley Kubrick, while Liz Braun thought that there were "moments of wonder and delight" but it was too long. The Post (2017) is an account of The Washington Post's printing of the Pentagon Papers. Starring Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep, production began in New York on May 30, 2017. Spielberg stated his attraction to the project: "When I read the first draft of the script, this wasn't something that could wait three years or two years—this was a story I felt we needed to tell today." It received a wide release on January 12, 2018. The Post gained positive reception; Lindsey Bahr wrote "Spielberg infuses every scene with tension and life and the grandeur of the ordinary that he's always been so good at conveying." In 2017, Spielberg, Paul Greengrass, Francis Ford Coppola, Guillermo del Toro and Lawrence Kasdan were featured in the Netflix documentary series Five Came Back, about the war-related works of directors Frank Capra, John Ford, John Huston, George Stevens and William Wyler. He executive produced the series with Barry Diller and Scott Rudin.

Spielberg directed Ready Player One (2018), adapted from Ernest Cline's novel. It stars Tye Sheridan, Olivia Cooke, Ben Mendelsohn, Lena Waithe, T.J. Miller, Simon Pegg and Mark Rylance. The plot takes place in 2045 when much of humanity uses virtual reality to escape the real world. Ready Player One began production in July 2016, and was intended to be released on December 15, 2017, but was moved to March 2018 to avoid competition with Star Wars: The Last Jedi. It premiered at the 2018 South by Southwest film festival. Spielberg's direction was praised along with the action scenes and visual effects, but many critics thought it was too long and overused 1980s nostalgia. In 2019, Spielberg filmed West Side Story, an adaptation of