Anecdotes

He once screened Lawrence d'Arabie (1962) with director David Lean, who gave Spielberg a "live director's commentary", as Spielberg put it. Spielberg said that it was one of the best moments of his life, learning from a true master. Consequently, Spielberg stated that it helped him make better pictures and that commentary directly influenced every movie he has made since.

When asked what are the films he's made he would like to be remembered for, he said E.T., l'extra-terrestre (1982) and La Liste de Schindler (1993).

He is a fan of video games and says that their development is intriguing to him.

He was directing a childbirth scene when he received a call that Amy Irving was giving birth to their son Max Spielberg.

When Spielberg received his undergraduate degree (about 35 years after he had first entered college), the orchestra played the theme from the "Indiana Jones" series of films as he walked up to and across the stage.

He almost directed Big (1988) with Tom Hanks starring, but didn't want to steal the thunder of his sister, Anne Spielberg, who co-wrote the script.

When he was a child, he sneaked onto the lot of Universal Studios during a tour and befriended an editor who showed him a few things about filmmaking.

He turned down the opportunity to direct Deep Impact (1998) and Le Masque de Zorro (1998) to work on Il faut sauver le soldat Ryan (1998).

He is the godfather of Drew Barrymore and Gwyneth Paltrow.

He spent five months developing the script for Rain Man (1988) with Ron Bass, but had to commit to his handshake deal to direct Indiana Jones et la Dernière Croisade (1989). Spielberg gave all of his notes to Barry Levinson.

His favourite directors are David Lean, Preston Sturges, Frank Capra, François Truffaut, Ingmar Bergman, Akira Kurosawa, Stanley Kubrick, Howard Hawks, Alfred Hitchcock and John Ford.

His favorite indoor relaxation pursuits are watching golf on TV and playing his computer game "Assassin's Creed".

He has always been very protective of his name. If his company is working on a film and he feels it is not up to his standards, he will remove his name as a producer.

He was originally set to direct Les Nerfs à vif (1991). He later recommended Martin Scorsese for the job and personally called the director, letting him know that this was a commercial film that had potential to be a hit, which would exercise more power for Scorcese to make his films.

His dog Elmer starred in several of his films including Les Dents de la mer (1975) and Rencontres du troisième type (1977).

During filming of their episode of Night Gallery (1969), Spielberg gave Joan Crawford the gift of a single red rose in a Pepsi bottle. During an on-set conversation with Detroit Free Press reporter Shirley Eder, Crawford pointed out Spielberg and said, "Go interview that kid, because he's going to be the biggest director of all time!" Crawford and Spielberg remained good friends until her death in 1977.

He often casts new actors based on their performances in other works. He rarely requires auditions for major roles.

In 1996, he purchased Clark Gable's Oscar (which he won for New York - Miami (1934)) to protect it from further commercial exploitation and gave it back to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, commenting that he could think of "no better sanctuary for Gable's only Oscar than the Motion Picture Academy".

His longtime friend George Lucas originally wanted him to direct the third entry of the original Star Wars trilogy, Le Retour du Jedi (1983) and Spielberg was eager to do so, but Lucas was unsuccessful in getting him the job because of his dispute with the Director's Guild at the time.

His father Arnold Spielberg was an innovator who worked on the first computer that was ever sold commercially back in 1950.

He has an estimated fortune of $2.8 billion ($2,800,000,000), according to the "Los Angeles Business Journal". The size of his fortune him the 14th richest person in the Los Angeles area and likely the wealthiest producer-director in the world (with only his friend George Lucas coming close).

The first major star he worked with was Joan Crawford, who appeared in the segment of the pilot episode for Rod Serling's Night Gallery (1969) which he directed. Crawford was initially skeptical about working with the then-inexperienced director, but her fears were soon allayed when she met with him and watched him at work. He, meanwhile, was surprised to find that Crawford was not demanding and made none of the outlandish requests which stars of her caliber were usually known to make. On the contrary, she was happy to give him advice about various aspects of film making which she had learned throughout her years in motion pictures, and gave him a lot of much needed encouragement. They quickly developed a strong working relationship, and as a result of her kindness became close friends, remaining so until her death.

The film Les Goonies (1985) was based on his group of childhood friends, which he referred to as the "goon squad.".

He is a huge fan of the actors Steve Martin, Bill Murray and Robin Williams. He is also proud to admit they are good friends of his.

He personally offered the American Beauty (1999) script to Sam Mendes, who ended up winning the Academy Award for Best Director on the film, which was Mendes's debut feature.

He was the co-founder (with Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen) of DreamWorks SKG.

He is of Hungarian descent, which explains his surname, coming from the Austrian city where his ancestors lived.

He, George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola presented Martin Scorsese with his first ever award for Best Director, for Les Infiltrés (2006).

In Rencontres du troisième type (1977), the humans and aliens use music and computers to communicate. Spielberg's father was a computer scientist and his mother was a musician. This fact was only recently pointed out to him on Actors Studio (1994) by host James Lipton and he was unsurprisingly delighted when he realised the connection.

He directed 17 actors in Oscar-nominated performances: Liam Neeson; Ralph Fiennes; Anthony Hopkins; Tom Hanks; Melinda Dillon; Whoopi Goldberg; Oprah Winfrey; Margaret Avery; Christopher Walken; Daniel Day-Lewis; Tommy Lee Jones; Sally Field; Mark Rylance; Meryl Streep; Ariana DeBose; Michelle Williams; and Judd Hirsch. Day-Lewis, Rylance, and DeBose won the award for their performances in Spielberg movies.

He flew Will Smith to his Hamptons home via helicopter to offer him the part in Men in Black (1997).

In 1998, he received the Germany's Cross of Merit with star for his sensible representation of Germany's history in La Liste de Schindler (1993).

He attended California State University-Long Beach after being turned down by USC Cinema school twice.

Early in his career, while working for Universal Studios, he was asked to give a tour to a special guest who had just sold the film rights to one of his books to the studio. That guest was Michael Crichton, who later worked with Spielberg on Jurassic Park (1993).

He directed six of the American Film Institute's 100 Most Heart-Pounding Movies: Les Dents de la mer (1975) at #2, Les Aventuriers de l'arche perdue (1981) at #10, Rencontres du troisième type (1977) at #31, Jurassic Park (1993) at #35, E.T., l'extra-terrestre (1982) at #44 and Il faut sauver le soldat Ryan (1998) at #45.

On May 31, 2002, graduated from California State University Long Beach with a bachelor's degree in film and electronic arts. He had dropped out of college in 1968 to concentrate on his career, but during the 2000s fulfilled his remaining graduation requirements via independent projects, which required correspondence courses and several term papers. For Spielberg, the school waived its requirement that all senior film majors must submit a completed 12-minute short film, accepting La Liste de Schindler (1993) in its place. He donned cap and gown and marched in the commencement ceremony with his fellow graduates.

He was voted the 11th Greatest Director of all time by Entertainment Weekly.

He has one of the original Rosebud sleds from Citizen Kane (1941) in his house.

Although close friend, George Lucas, has vowed to only shoot future movies digitally, Spielberg has been the most vocal film-maker of the opposing view: to continue shooting all of his movies on film. Other directors siding with Spielberg include Martin Scorsese and Oliver Stone.

Although a known supporter of tighter gun controls in the U.S., he owns one of the largest gun collections on the East Coast. He shoots, but only privately. He is also an excellent shot with a shotgun. Actor Shia LaBeouf once said about his shooting, "He's an Olympic shot. The hand-eye co-ordination of that man is unlike anything I've ever seen. If he weren't a great director, he could be one of our greatest snipers".

The first film he directed that was not scored by John Williams was La Couleur pourpre (1985), which was scored by Quincy Jones.

He confessed to host James Lipton that he has a phobia about "furniture with feet" (Steven Spielberg (1999)).

His father served in World War II in South East Asian Front.

Aside from producing Les Goonies (1985), he also directed at least one scene in the movie.

To date, has never provided a director's commentary on any of his film's DVDs.

According to Teri Garr, Spielberg told her on a set that one of his favorite movies is L'amour en quatrième vitesse (1964), starring Elvis Presley.

Steven Spielberg was the first living person to have a playable Lego mini-figure modelled after him. It was sold with several sets as part of the Lego Studios product range in the early 2000s.

He is the most represented filmmaker on the American Film Institute's 100 Most Inspiring Movies of All Time, with five films on the list and three in the top ten. They are: Rencontres du troisième type (1977) at #58; La Couleur pourpre (1985) at #51; Il faut sauver le soldat Ryan (1998) at #10; E.T., l'extra-terrestre (1982) at #6 and La Liste de Schindler (1993) at #3.

He claims Richard Dreyfuss is his alter-ego.

In the 5th edition of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die (edited by Steven Jay Schneider), 8 of Spielberg's films are listed: Les Dents de la mer (1975), Rencontres du troisième type (1977), Les Aventuriers de l'arche perdue (1981), E.T., l'extra-terrestre (1982), La Couleur pourpre (1985), Jurassic Park (1993), La Liste de Schindler (1993) and Il faut sauver le soldat Ryan (1998).