Steven Spielberg produced his first film at age 12

Spielberg ranks among the most successful filmmakers in history, in terms of both critical acclaim and popular success even though his films are sometimes portrayed as the archetype of modern Hollywood blockbuster film-making (commercialism over artistic purposes) by critics.

Steven Spielberg produced his first film at age 12, financed with the profits from his tree-planting business. At 13, he won a prize for his Escape to Nowhere, a 40-minute war movie, and at 16, his feature length sci-fi film Firelight was shown in a movie theater in Phoenix, where he grew up. In college at Cal State, a short film he made called Amblin' was shown at the Atlanta Film Festival, which resulted in a seven-year television directing contract with Universal.
After working on a few TV shows and making his first feature film, Spielberg was given the opportunity to direct Jaws. The $8.6 million film proved incredibly successful, grossing $260 million. Two years later he was nominated for an Academy Award for directing of Close Encounters of the Third Kind. After Close Encounters, Spielberg hit a low point with the flop 1941, but soon rebounded with Raiders of the Lost Ark, a collaborative effort with Star Wars director George Lucas. He followed up the success of Raiders with 1982's E.T., also a blockbuster hit.

Directing the film adaptation of Alice Walker's novel The Color Purple in 1985 represented a departure for Spielberg; the film was seen as a direct response to criticism that he could only produce action and science fiction movies. The film received 11 Oscar nominations, but the nomination for Best Director was conspicuously absent. Nine years later, after directing such blockbusters as Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and Jurassic Park, he again attempted a serious subject: the Holocaust. Schindler's List, the story of Nazi Party member Oskar Schindler, who helped save hundreds of European Jews bound for concentration camps, won Spielberg his first Academy Awards for Best Director and Best Picture.

Trivia

• While the films that Steven Spielberg directed have won numerous awards, no actor or actress has won an Academy Award for a performance given in one of his films, although several have been nominated. Spielberg had a cameo role as the Cook County assessor in the last minutes of the 1980 film The Blues Brothers.

• In 2005, Empire magazine ranked Spielberg number one on a list of the greatest film directors of all time.

FAN SITE : http://www.spielbergfilms.com/

• The Star Wars character Senator Grebleips was inspired by Steven Spielberg, hence his name is "spielberg" spelled backwards.

• In the 2006 edition of Forbes' "400 Richest People in America" Spielberg is the 80th richest American. His net worth is estimated at 2.9 billion dollars, an increase from $2.7 billion in 2005. He, and good friend George Lucas (net worth: $3.9 billion, up from 3.5 billion, current position 55) are the only filmmakers on the list.

Oracle CEO - College dropout

Larry Ellison, founder of software developer Oracle, was abandoned by his parents at birth and was raised by his great aunt and uncle. As a child, neighbors remember Larry as a "laundernaut," climbing into dryers in the nearby laundromat in order to spin. He was never one for academics and dropped out of college in favor of driving to cross-country California, where he discovered Silicon Valley - and pot. (Ellison has made it clear to the public that he himself did inhale on occasion.)

Despite an altered state at times, Ellison paved his road to riches smartly. Until 1977 he was a programmer at various computer companies. It was then that he and his friend Robert Miner started Software Development Laboratories, which later became Oracle. The 1980s were good years for the company, largely due to Ellison's extremely tough sales tactics. But it almost went bankrupt in 1990, as people found out that Oracle's salespeople had been reporting sales before they were really in.

After reinstating a clear policy of honesty, Ellison was able to bring Oracle back to the forefront of the business, but to this day his attitude is ruthlessly competitive. According to Time magazine, Ellison always uses very harsh language when discussing business. "He'll say, 'This is the quarter we put a knife in their chest,' or, 'The life will be choked out of them.'" Ellison's killer instinct clearly serves him well, as his company's market value is now greater than Time Warner's - but he doesn't want to stop there. His ultimate goal is to surpass Microsoft as the biggest and most recognized computer company in the world. According to Ellison, his motivation for such success is more theoretical than personal: "I'm more interested in beating Microsoft than I am in beating Bill Gates," he says. "I obsess on the personal computer and the industry, and I would love to see the age of proprietary computers end."