Steven Spielberg (107 page)

Patricia Goldstone uncovered Spielberg’s deception about his birthdate in “Movie Directors Can Stay Forever Young,”
LAT,
March 8, 1981. Spielberg’s representatives confirmed his correct age in James Bates, “Spielberg’s Legal Dispute Adds a Year to His Life,”
LAT,
October 27, 1995.

The author of this book first interviewed Denis C. Hoffman about Spielberg on September 12, 1994.
Denis
C.
Hoffman
vs.
Steven
Spielberg
was filed October 25, 1995, in Los Angeles County Superior Court;
Heights
Investment
Co.
Inc.
and
Steven
Spielberg
vs.
Denis
Hoffman
was filed in the same court on October 24, 1995. A copy of Spielberg’s September 28, 1968, agreement with Hoffman is contained in Hoffman’s suit, as are copies of Hoffman’s Short Form Assignment of
A
mblin’
rights to Spielberg, December 30, 1976, and Assignment of Rights, January 3, 1977; Hoffman’s March 16, 1970, distribution agreement with United Productions of America; his June 15, 1970, distribution agreement with Excelsior Distributing Co.; and his U.K. distribution agreement with Four Star, November 14, 1972. Other articles on Hoffman’s claim against Spielberg include (1995): Ted Johnson, “Spielberg Sues
Amblin
[
sic
]
Investor,”
DV,
and Donna Parker, “Spielberg Sues Donut Guy over
Amblin
[
sic
]
Dough,”
HR,
October 25; “Spielberg Charges Aired,”
DV,
October 27; Jonathan Davies, “Doughnut Guy Returns Fire,”
HR,
October 27–29; “Director vs. Donut Man,”
Time,
November 6; and (1996):
“1941
Will Now Be Known as
1942,
”
Premiere,
February. Hoffman’s attorneys Robert C. Rosen and Pierce O’Donnell issued an October 26,1995, press release, “Steven Spielberg Sued for Fraud by Producer Who Launched His Career.”

Leah Adler’s quip about having “my uterus bronzed” is from David Ferrell, “Mother’s Day,”
LAT,
March 23, 1994. She also discussed Steven’s childhood in Bernstein; John Skow, “Staying Five Moves Ahead,”
Time,
May 31, 1982; Jeff Silverman, “They Are What They E.T.—Or, a Close Encounter of the Spielberg Kind,”
LAHE,
June 24, 1982; Corliss, “‘I Dream for a Living’”; and Rochlin. She jokingly described herself as “certifiable” in Karen S. Schneider and Kristina Johnson, “That’s My Boy,”
People,
April 25, 1994. Steven’s description of himself as “a victim of the Peter Pan Syndrome” is from Jerry Buck, “Spielberg: Raider of the Lost Art of Anthologies,”
LADN,
June 28, 1995. Dr. Dan Kiley’s 1983 book
The
Peter
Pan
Syndrome:
Men
Who
Have
Never
Grown
Up
was published by Dodd, Mead, 1983. Dustin Hoffman’s remark about Spielberg’s insecurity is from Schruers. Henry Sheehan analyzed Spielberg’s films in his two-part
Film
Com
ment
essay
“The Panning of Steven Spielberg,” May–June 1992, and “Spielberg II,” July– August 1992.

Spielberg recalled hearing about Nazis and the Holocaust as a child in various interviews around the time of
Schindler’s
List
and in “Production Information,”
Schindler’s
List
press kit, Universal Pictures, 1993. Steven’s mother told Weinraub and Horstman about hearing stories from Holocaust survivors. Her comments about raising her children largely among gentiles are from Bernstein and Horstman. She described Judaism as having been “a very nothing part of our lives” in Schneider and Johnson. David Halberstam’s comments on postwar America are from
The
Fifties,
Villard Books, 1993.

Information on the Spielbergs’ move from Cincinnati to Camden and Haddon Township, New Jersey, is from the author’s interviews with Arnold Spielberg; their New Jersey neighbors Miriam Fuhrman, Jane Fuhrman Satanoff, and Glenn Fuhrman; and Helen and Peter Rutan, who sold the Spielbergs their home in Haddon Township in August 1952. Information on the births of Spielberg’s sisters is from Arnold Spielberg. Sources on Haddonfield and Haddon Township include the author’s interviews with other Spielberg neighbors; Haddonfield City Directories, 1952, 1954–55, and 1956; and Robert
Strauss, “Take a Walk on the Mild Side by Hoofing It in Haddonfield,”
The
Philadelphia
Inquirer,
July 15, 1994. Spielberg’s time in Haddon Township was discussed in Strauss and in Tillie Clement, “Master of Big-Screen Fantasy Adventures Has a Local Link,”
The
Haddon
Gazette,
August 8, 1985. 

The late Arnold Fuhrman’s description of the young Steven Spielberg as
“meshug
geneh
”
and his other comments about Steven were reported by Fuhrman’s sister Miriam, his daughter Jane Satanoff, and his son Glenn. Anne Spielberg’s observation about
Jaws
is from Reilly.

Information on the Spielbergs’ home on Crystal Terrace in Haddon Township is from the author’s interviews with Helen and Peter Rutan, and with August and Loretta Knoblach, who bought the house from the Spielbergs in February 1957. Information on Temple Beth Shalom was provided by Rabbi Albert Lewis, who researched the temple’s history in its bulletins,
Temple
Talk,
1953–57. Steven’s memory of Hebrew school and his other comments on Jewish education are from Guthmann and from Karen W. Arenson, “From
Schindler’s
List,
a Jewish Mission,”
NYT,
September 24, 1995.

Steven’s recollections of Christmastime on Crystal Terrace to Salamon in “The Long Voyage Home” are similar to stories he told his California high school classmate Gene Ward Smith, who recalled them in interviews with the author and in February 25 and March 28, 1994, letters to the author.

Arnold Spielberg told the author about his work for RCA, as did Rabbi Lewis and Arnold’s RCA colleagues J. Wesley Leas, Bill Davison, and Miriam Fuhrman. Although in “The Autobiography of Peter Pan,” Steven says he was around eleven years old when he swallowed his father’s transistor, which would place the incident in Arizona, Leas says that Arnold received his first transistor while working at RCA in about 1955, which would indicate that Steven was eight or nine when the incident supposedly occurred. Arnold described his influence on Steven’s storytelling abilities to the author and in Corliss, “‘I Dream for a Living.’”

Information on the
Hadrosaurus
foulkii
is from John R. Horner and James Gorman,
Digging
Dinosaurs,
Workman, 1988; “Fossil Site Designated Landmark,”
NYT,
November 27, 1994; and the author’s interview with Jon Davison. Sources on Spielberg’s early interest in dinosaurs include the author’s interview with Scott MacDonald and Spielberg’s comments on the 1993 Bravo cable-TV program
Opening
Shot:
“Dinosaurs.” Spielberg remembered his first visit to Disneyland in “60 Candles,”
People,
November 7, 1988.

The chapter title is Spielberg’s self-description in Sragow, “A Conversation with Steven Spielberg.” The Spielbergs’ North Forty-ninth street address in Phoenix is listed in the Phoenix and Scottsdale city directories, 1958–63.

Leah Adler recalled moving to Arizona in Baxter; she talked about Steven’s room, neighborhood children’s anti-Semitism, and her marriage to Bernard Adler in Bernstein,
The
Jewish
Mothers’
Hall
of
Fame.
She also spoke of her second husband in Schneider and Johnson, “That’s My Boy”; his obituaries appeared in
LAT,
October 3, 1995, and
NYT,
October 8 and 15,1995. Leah discussed Steven’s relationship with his sisters (Anne, Sue, and Nancy) in Reilly and in Rochlin. Sue and Nancy talked about their family in Corliss, “‘I Dream for a Living’”; Anne talked about Steven to Schiff and to Reilly. Steven confessed his
Lost
World
prank and his “six-month fling as a juvenile delinquent” to Margolis and Modderno.

Sources on Spielberg’s Boy Scouting include the author’s interviews with Arnold Spielberg, Scout leader Richard Y. Hoffman Jr., and various members of Ingleside’s
Troop 294. Hoffman also was interviewed in Bill Jones, “‘Mr. Wizard’ Inspired Filmmaker’s Creative Fire,”
The
Arizona
Republic,
May 12, 1996, which includes Steven’s 1985 description of him as “Mr. Wizard.” Spielberg’s most detailed comments about his Scouting experiences are in Olmsted’s article “‘Ex–Boy Scout Makes Movies.’”

Spielberg’s most extensive interview about his early filmmaking is Poster, “The Mind Behind
Close
Encounters
of
the
Third
Kind”;
contemporaneous printed sources include Savoy’s 1962 article “Pennies for Perry” and Clark’s 1963 profile “Teenage Cecil B.” Arnold Spielberg’s memories of Steven’s filmmaking are from an interview with the author. Leah Adler talked about her son’s filmmaking in “Leah Adler,” Steven Spielberg tribute issue,
HR,
March 10, 1994. Barry Sollenberger reminisced about their filmmaking activities to the author and in
Citizen
Steve.

A
Day
in
the
Life
of
Thunder
was described to the author by Doug Tice and his mother, Marie Tice; former Ingleside Elementary School principal Richard T. Ford was among those who remembered
Steve
Spielberg’s
Home
Movies;
the filming of
Scary
Hollow
was reported to the author by Betty Castleberry Edwards (Roger Sheer’s widow). The making of
Fighter
Squad
was recalled by Edwards (who preserved the single surviving print), Arnold Spielberg, and cast members Jim Sollenberger, Barry Sollenberger, Steve Suggs, Doug Tice, and Mike McNamara. Clips from
Fighter
Squad
were shown in
The
Barbara
Walters
Special
(1994) and
The
American
Film
Institute
Salute
to
Steven
Spielberg
(A&E; expanded version, 1995).

Sources on Steven’s early film screenings include the Savoy and Clark articles and the author’s interviews with Arnold Spielberg and neighborhood children who attended the screenings. Paul Campanella’s story about Steven painting his ladies’ room is from
Citizen
Steve.

Spielberg’s comments on David Lean’s influence are quoted in Taylor and in L. Robert Morris and Lawrence Raskin,
“Lawrence
of
Arabia
”:
The
30th
Anniversary
Picto
rial
History,
Anchor Books, 1992; Haven Peters recalled Spielberg’s classroom discussion of
The
Bridge
on
the
River
Kwai
in a letter to the author on February 12, 1994. Spielberg reminisced about the
Wallace
&
Ladmo
show in
Ladmo
Remembered:
A
Wallace
&
Ladmo
Special
(KPHO, Phoenix, 1994); other sources include the author’s interview with Bill Thompson (“Wallace”); Mark J. Scarp, “Spielberg Remains True to Local Roots,” and Jeffrey Crane, “Ladmo Memorials Still Coming into Club,”
Scottsdale
Progress
Tribune,
March 19, 1994. Ray Bradbury’s comments on Spielberg are from his introduction to Durwood, ed.,
“Close
Encounters
of
the
Third
Kind”:
A
Document
of
the
Film.

Ingleside’s 1961 eighth-grade graduation ceremonies are documented in the program for that event and in teacher Patricia Scott Rodney’s “Class Prophesy [
sic
]
1961.”

Sources on Phoenix’s Arcadia High School, which Spielberg attended from September 1961 through March 1964, include the author’s interviews with the current Arcadia principal, Dr. J. Calvin Bruins; former principal Jackson Drake; and other past and present staff, faculty members, and students. Also helpful were the school newspaper,
The
Arcadian,
1961–64, and yearbook,
The
Olympian,
1962–64; and booklets commemorating the twentieth and thirtieth reunions of the Class of 1965. Arcadia was profiled by Mary Jo Clements in “School’s a Blast in Arizona!”
’Teen,
April 1962.

Spielberg reminisced about the incident with the frogs in Corliss, “Steve’s Summer Magic,” and in the 1996 MCA Home Video laserdisc documentary
The
Making
of
“E.T.
The
Extra-Terrestrial,
”
directed by Laurent Bouzereau. Spielberg’s theatrical activities at Arcadia were recalled by faculty members including Drama Club adviser Phil Deppe, vocal director Harold Millsop, and art teacher Margaret Burrell; and by Phyllis Brooks,
who worked on costumes for the school plays and is the wife of former school band director Reginald Brooks. The author also interviewed the following students who were involved with Spielberg in school plays and/or in the Drama Club and theater-arts class: Jean Weber Brill, Karen Hayden, Bill Hoffman, Clifford Lindblom, Clark (Lucky) Lohr, Peggy McMullin Loper, Haven Peters, Paul G. Rowe, Carol Stromme Shelton, Sherry Missner Williams, and Beth Weber Zelenski. Peters also recalled Spielberg’s work with stage director Dana Lynch in his 1994 letter to the author. Other sources on Spielberg’s theatrical activities include
The
Olympian,
1963, 1964; Jarrett; Spielberg, “Dialogue on Film: Steven Spielberg”; and articles in
The
Arcadian,
including Melinda Milar, “Crews Arrange Sets for Play”
(Guys
and
Dolls),
February 15,1963; “Crews Named for First Play”
(See
How
They
Run),
September 27, 1963;
“I
Remember
Mama
Tryouts Completed,” November 8, 1963; Lynn Davis,
“I
Remember
Mama
Opens Next Week,” December 6, 1963; and “Drama Students Become Arcadia’s Thespians,” March 6, 1964.
The
Olympian
also lists Spielberg’s membership in the Junior Varsity Band (1963) and the Titan Marching Band (1964).