Curated category
American film production company founders
- Simon KinbergSimon Kinberg has a small cameo in one of his own scripts. In Mr. & Mrs. Smith, he plays the banker who chats with John Smith at a dinner party.
- Steven SpielbergSteven Spielberg was born on the 18th of December 1946, in Cincinnati, Ohio, and by the time he was twelve years old, he had already staged and filmed a…
- George LucasGeorge Lucas was nearly killed before he ever made a film. On the 12th of June 1962, a few days before his high school graduation in Modesto, California…
- Christopher NolanChristopher Nolan does not own a smartphone, and he has no email address. He hand-delivers his scripts to the actors he wants, and his wife handles the rest…
- Kirk DouglasKirk Douglas was born Issur Danielovitch on the 9th of December 1916, the only son among seven children in a Russian-Jewish immigrant family in Amsterdam…
- Louis B. MayerLouis B. Mayer was the son of a Yiddish-speaking scrap metal dealer from a Ukrainian village, and he died the highest-paid man in the United States for nine…
- Clint EastwoodClinton Eastwood Jr. entered the world at Saint Francis Memorial Hospital in San Francisco on the 31st of May, 1930, weighing 11 pounds 6 ounces.
- Jack L. WarnerJack Leonard Warner ran Warner Bros. Studios for more than half a century, longer than any other pioneering Hollywood mogul.
- Natalie PortmanNatalie Portman was born on the 9th of June 1981, in Jerusalem, at Hadassah Medical Center. She has spent most of her life navigating two worlds: the…
- Michael DouglasMichael Kirk Douglas was born on the 25th of September, 1944, into a household already saturated with Hollywood ambition.
- Thomas EdisonThomas Edison kept his own deafness a mystery, inventing elaborate false stories about how he lost his hearing. He was completely deaf in one ear and barely…
- Kathleen Kennedy (producer)Kathleen Kennedy was supposed to be taking notes. In 1979, she was an assistant on the Spielberg production 1941. According to Spielberg, speaking in 2015…
- Walt DisneyWalt Disney holds the record for most Academy Awards won by an individual, with 22 wins from 59 nominations. Yet the man behind that record was, in private…
- Allison ShearmurAllison Shearmur got her start in the film business by winning a campus contest. The prize was lunch with Stanley Jaffe, an executive at Columbia Pictures.
- Carl LaemmleCarl Laemmle arrived in New York on the 14th of February 1884, seventeen years old, with fifty dollars in his pocket and a ticket stub from the SS Neckar.
- Arnold SchwarzeneggerArnold Alois Schwarzenegger arrived in the United States in October 1968 at age 21, speaking little English and carrying little money.
- Dean DevlinDean Devlin grew up with Hollywood in his blood and an unusual family story behind him. His father, Don Devlin, was an actor turned writer-producer who…