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38 unusual facts about Steven Spielberg


1992 cageless shark-diving expedition

In fact Askew had proposed, in an article (the first of its kind), entitled "Myth or Maneater?", published in the UK magazine Underwater World back in 1978, that Great Whites did not deserve the horrific image and reputation that Jaws author Peter Benchley and film director Steven Spielberg had imprinted in peoples minds.

Alice Lok Cahana

Cahana was one of five Hungarian Holocaust survivors whose story was featured in the Steven Spielberg 1999 Academy Award winning documentary movie, The Last Days.

Anson County, North Carolina

Steven Spielberg filmed The Color Purple mostly in Lilesville, and a large white farmhouse (the Huntley house, which is located in Lilesville, NC and is an old farmhouse located few miles off Highway 74) was used extensively as the main exterior location in that film.

Augustus Brandegee

Unfortunately Steven Spielberg's 2012 epic film Lincoln bestows Brandegee and English with fictional names and changes history to erroneously depict them both as Democrats voting against the amendment.

Barbara Guggenheim

Barbara and her partner, Abigail Asher, have built collections for corporations including Coca Cola and Sony, and numerous individuals, including celebrities Tom Cruise and Steven Spielberg.

Battle of Jenkins' Ferry

The battle is briefly depicted, and mentioned by two USCT soldiers who speak with President Abraham Lincoln (Daniel Day-Lewis) in the opening scene of the 2012 Steven Spielberg movie Lincoln.

Bengali science fiction

It is alleged that the script for Steven Spielberg’s film E.T. was based on a script for The Alien that Ray had sent to the film's producers in the late 1960s.

Bradley Thompson

In 2011, they joined the writing staff for the second season of the Steven Spielberg alien-invasion drama Falling Skies on TNT.

Castle Combe

Throughout September 2010, the village was used as a key filming location for Steven Spielberg's production of War Horse.

Cutscene

Director Steven Spielberg, an avid video gamer, has criticized the use of cutscenes in games, calling them intrusive, and feels making story flow naturally into the gameplay is a challenge for future game developers.

Empire of the Sun

The screenplay was filmed by Steven Spielberg, to critical acclaim, being nominated for six Oscars and winning three British Academy Awards (for cinematography, music and sound).

Enigmatic: Calling

According to the liner notes, Enigmatic : Calling was inspired by "a number of great thinkers, philosophers, scientists, writers, and film directors," including Erich von Däniken, Albert Einstein, and Steven Spielberg.

Fernando Wood

Steven Spielberg's Lincoln portrays Wood, played by Lee Pace, as a leading opponent of the President and of the Thirteenth Amendment.

Five Corners, Newark

In Steven Spielberg's War of the Worlds, this is the location where an alien tripod is first revealed, by breaking through and rising over the street, as a large crowd of people watch, including Tom Cruise's character.

Hart County, Georgia

Letters to Miss Celie in the movie The Color Purple (film) by Steven Spielberg, based on the novel The Color Purple by Alice Walker, are addressed to "Hartwell County, Georgia" suggesting that the movie is set either in Hartwell or Hart County.

Hubert Burda

Through his active involvement in Partners in Tolerance, Burda supports Steven Spielberg's Shoah Foundation.

Iris recognition

Steven Spielberg's 2002 science fiction film Minority Report depicts a society in which what appears to be a form of iris recognition has become daily practice.

James E. English

Sadly, in Steven Spielberg's 2012 epic Lincoln movie, both English and Augustus Brandegee, his abolitionist Republican colleague from Connecticut, are given two fictional names and are both shown, erroneously, to have voted against the amendment.

Japanese submarine I-19

I-19 was the number of the submarine, commanded by Toshiro Mifune, in the Steven Spielberg movie, 1941.

Joseph Story

Non-lawyers are most likely to be familiar with Story's 1841 opinion in the case of United States v. The Amistad, which was the basis for a 1997 movie directed by Steven Spielberg.

Kroke

During a promotional concert for the album, the band met Steven Spielberg, who invited them to perform at the “Survivors Reunion” concert in Jerusalem, Israel and during the Polish premier of the film Schindler’s List.

Lexus 2054

In 2002, Lexus was requested by Steven Spielberg, a Lexus owner himself, to design a vehicle that would fit the requirements of year 2054 for his movie adaptation of the Philip K. Dick short story Minority Report.

Lilesville, North Carolina

Steven Spielberg filmed The Color Purple mostly in Lilesville, and a large white farmhouse (the James Bennett Plantation, which is an old farmhouse located a few miles off Highway 74) was used extensively as the main exterior location in that film.

Lindstradt air rifle

The Lindstradt air rifle is a fictional rifle made in Sweden used in Michael Crichton's novel The Lost World, and in the novel's film adaptation The Lost World: Jurassic Park directed by Steven Spielberg.

Manuel Esteba

Manuel Esteba (April 17, 1941 – February 4, 2010) was a Spanish director and screenwriter, notable for writing a spoof of Steven Spielberg's E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial called El E.T.E. y el Oto. <

Matawan Creek

This account, in addition to a number of other shark attacks in the local area, are believed to have been the inspiration for the popular novel Jaws, written by Peter Benchley, who in turn co-wrote the screenplay for the blockbuster film of the same name directed by Steven Spielberg.

My Life My Love: Boku no Yume: Watashi no Negai

A news anchorman and his assistant helps to cover important headlines including LSD becoming illegal and the release of Steven Spielberg's 1982 movie E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.

Neck frill

Similar to the portrayal of the dinosaur Dilophosaurus in Steven Spielberg's Jurassic Park, the frill-necked lizard can puff out these neck frills either side of its head when threatened.

Night Reconnaissance

The song implies that she has become an aspiring script writer, basing her films' characters on the personas and prejudgments assumed to her by the bullies, which she hopes will be directed by Steven Spielberg.

Paul VI Catholic High School

There was a high profile scandal at PVI in 1999 when it was discovered that 16-year-old student Jonathan Taylor Spielberg, who claimed to be Steven Spielberg's nephew, was actually Anoushirvan Fakhran, a 27-year-old porn actor from Tehran, Iran.

Peterbilt 281

It was very popular with truckers, but remained mainly unknown by the public until the release of Steven Spielberg's first feature film "Duel" in 1971.

The release of Steven Spielberg's first feature film, Duel, in 1971 made the 281 notorious to the public.

St. Ignatius Cathedral, Shanghai

The cathedral was featured in the opening scenes of Steven Spielberg's 1987 film Empire of the Sun.

The Kindness of Women

The Kindness of Women is a 1991 novel by British author J.G. Ballard, a sequel to his 1984 novel Empire of the Sun, which drew on the author's boyhood in Shanghai during World War II, presenting a lightly fictionalized treatment of Ballard's life from Shanghai through to adulthood in England, culminating with the making of Steven Spielberg's 1987 film Empire of the Sun.

The Murder

John Williams made this technique famous 15 years later in his score for Steven Spielberg's Jaws (1975).

Welcome to Heartlight

While many fans perceive this song as being inspired by the Steven Spielberg film E.T., it is really about a school in Southern California that's actually called "Heartlight".

Wilfholme

A nine year-old dressage horse, Faldo, trained for nine months at Wilfholme, was bought in 2010 by the production company for Steven Spielberg's film War Horse to play one of the film's two horses in the role of Topthorn.

Xujiahui

The sign on the street calls it simply "Catholic Church." The cathedral was featured in the opening scenes of Steven Spielberg's 1987 film Empire of the Sun.


Anna B. Sheppard

A sister to fellow costume designer Magdalena Biedrzycka, Sheppard made many films with directing masters like Steven Spielberg or Roman Polański.

Bill Raymond

He played Speaker of the United States House of Representatives Schuyler Colfax in Steven Spielberg's Lincoln.

Clark Hallren

In 2009, Hallren helped syndicate $325 million in senior debt for Steven Spielberg's DreamWorks SKG - where equity was matched by India's Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group.

Eugene Dynarski

Three of the most popular projects that he has been involved with were two Steven Spielberg films: Duel and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and Westwood Studios landmark computer game Command & Conquer: Red Alert.

Flags of Our Fathers

The film adaptation Flags of Our Fathers, which opened in the U.S. on October 20, 2006, was directed by Clint Eastwood and produced by Steven Spielberg, with a screenplay written by William Broyles, Jr. and Paul Haggis.

Gail Parent

She also wrote episodes of The Smothers Brothers Show, The Carol Burnett Show, Rhoda, Steven Spielberg's Amazing Stories, Babes (of which she also served as series creator) and Finder of Lost Loves, and the musical variety special Sills and Burnett at the Met.

Guy Hendrix Dyas

Dyas previously received three consecutive Art Directors Guild Award nominations for his production design work on Steven Spielberg's Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Shekhar Kapur's Elizabeth: The Golden Age and Superman Returns for Bryan Singer.

Helen Jonas-Rosenzweig

The documentary's director, James Moll, an associate of Steven Spielberg's, helped bring the two women together to make the film for PBS.

Jeff Rona

Since then he has scored a number of other films and television projects with directors such as Ridley Scott, Steven Spielberg, Wong Kar-wai, Robert Altman, Steven Soderbergh, Mark Pellington, Stephen Hopkins, Jonathan Demme, Frank Darabont and many others.

Jordan Frieda

He had a small part in Steven Spielberg's TV mini series Band of Brothers and took the lead role in a controversial American TV movie called Prince William, filmed in 2002, in Dublin, Ireland, about Prince William of Wales, with whom Frieda attended Eton College.

Malia Scotch Marmo

She wrote the screenplays for Lasse Hallström's first American film, Once Around, Steven Spielberg's Hook, Daisy von Scherler Mayer's Madeline and co-adapted (with David Koepp) Michael Crichton's novel Jurassic Park into Steven Spielberg's Jurassic Park.

Mary Selway

Selway worked with a number of renowned directors over three decades, including Steven Spielberg, Roman Polanski, Clint Eastwood, John Boorman, Sydney Pollack, Robert Altman, Michael Apted, Nicolas Roeg, Fred Schepisi, Fred Zinnemann and Ridley Scott.

Nazis at the Center of the Earth

In his commentary director Joseph J. Lawson cites as his visual influences Steven Spielberg, Peter Jackson, Sam Raimi, John Carpenter, John Landis, David Lean, J.J. Abrams and Robert Rodriguez.

Omar Metwally

Metwally's film roles include Gavin Hood's Rendition and Steven Spielberg's Munich, The City of Your Final Destination, released in 2010 (filmed 2006–07), and Amsterdam.

Peter Bradley Adams

Within a year of forming eastmountainsouth in 2001 (with Kat Maslich Bode), they were signed by Robbie Robertson to DreamWorks Records (founded in 1996 by David Geffen, Steven Spielberg and Jeffrey Katzenberg).

Polseres vermelles

In October 2011, it was announced that Steven Spielberg's DreamWorks and Marta Kauffman had reached an agreement with TV3 for an American remake of Polseres Vermelles.

Russian Schoolroom

Steven Spielberg bought the painting from Judy Goffman Cutler, a noted art dealer who specialized in American illustrators, in 1989 for $200,000.

Short Cuts

Altman was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director (but lost to Steven Spielberg for Schindler's List) and shared a nomination for the Golden Globe Award for Best Screenplay with Barhydt (lost to Steven Zaillian for Schindler's List).

Simon Wells

Wells later became a member of Amblimation, a studio owned by Steven Spielberg, where he served as director on films such as An American Tail: Fievel Goes West, We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story and Balto.

Space Brat

The editor disagreed with this idea, however, saying he "didn't think kids would be interested in reading about a noseless green humanoid from outer space." Ironically, this was a few years before Steven Spielberg's movie E.T. was released.