Steven Spielberg (120 page)

Information on political donations by Spielberg and Kate Capshaw, 1997–2009, is from public records listed on newsmeat.com. Their donation to the anti-Proposition 8 campaign was reported in Dan Morain, “Steven Spielberg and Kate Capshaw donate big to stop California’s marriage initiative,”
LAT
blog, September 22, 2008. Spielberg’s endorsement of Arnold Schwarzenegger was discussed in Robert Salladay, “Hollywood Trio Endorses Governor,”
LAT
, August 5, 2006; and his support of Jerry Brown in “Spielberg, Katzenberg and Geffen to Endorse Jerry Brown,”
Variety
, September 1, 2009. President Bill Clinton asking Spielberg to make
The Unfinished Journey
was reported in Michael Fleming, “Pals, Prez Plan 2000,”
DV
, September 24, 1998. Clinton’s attendance at the Washington, D.C., premiere of
Amistad
was mentioned in Frank Rich’s column “Slavery Is Bad,”
NYT
, December 6, 1997. Spielberg’s comment on Clinton and the Monica Lewinsky scandal is from Dubner.

Spielberg‘s involvement in the 2008 presidential campaign is discussed in 2007 articles including Marcus Baram, “Hillary’s Hollywood Friends Switch Sides,”
ABC News
, January 24; Alfonso Serrano, “Clinton Wins Endorsement from Spielberg,” AP, June 13; Nikki Finke, “Spielberg Endorses Hillary Clinton; New Polling Shows Her Even with Giuliani,”
Deadline Hollywood Daily
, June 13; and Daunt, “Blockbuster endorsement for Clintons,”
LAT
, June 14. Spielberg’s comments on President Barack Obama at the January 20, 2009, inaugural ceremony are from an interview by Chip Reid of CBS News. Obama’s remark “If it weren’t for you” is from Jeff Zeleny, “Obama Rings Up Cash Among the Stars,” Reuters, May 27, 2009; additional coverage of the 2009 Beverly Hills fund-raiser is from Tina Daunt, “President Obama follows the money to L.A.,”
LAT
, May 27; and Liz Smith, “Obama Comes to Hollywood: Event to Raise Funds for the DNC,”
Variety
, May 29.

Spielberg’s resignation (2001) from the Boy Scouts of America national advisory board was reported in Carl DiOrio, “Spielberg exits Boy Scouts,”
DV
, April 17; Andrew Gumbel, “Steven Spielberg quits Boy Scouts in protest at anti-gay discrimination,”
Independent
(UK), April 18; and “Spielberg Quits Scout Post Over Anti-Gay Policy,”
LAT
, April 27. Spielberg’s resignation (2008) from his advisorship to the Beijing Olympics and statements by Spielberg and Mia Farrow are from Ted Johnson, “Games over for Spielberg,”
DV
, February 13; see also Helen Cooper, “Spielberg Drops Out as Adviser to Beijing Olympics in Dispute Over Darfur Conflict,”
NYT
, February 13; and Gregg Kilday, “Spielberg DQs Olympics,”
HR
, February 13.

Spielberg’s comment about his “normal life” is from John Hartl, “Spielberg’s inspiration of
Ryan
started 26 years ago,” Long Beach
Press-Telegram
, July 24, 1998. Bob Gale’s comment about Spielberg was made in an interview with the author.

Coverage of the Jonathan Norman stalker incident includes (1997) Greg Krikorian, “Stalking of Spielberg Alleged in Testimony,”
LAT
, December 18; Norma Meyer, “Arrest of man ‘panicked’ Spielberg,” Santa Monica
Outlook
, December 18; “Alleged plan
to rape Spielberg,”
HR
, December 18; and (1998) Krikorian, “Trial Starts in Spielberg Stalker Case,”
LAT
, February 20; Pat Alston, “Accused stalker claimed appointment,”
Outlook
, February 21; Cynthia Sanz, Ken Baker, Jeff Schnaufer, and Vickie Kane, “Close Encounter,”
People
, February 23; Krikorian, “Spielberg Takes Stand in Trial of Accused Stalker,”
LAT
, February 26; Alston, “Director tells jury of terror,”
Outlook
, February 26; “Spielberg recounts fears, anguish over alleged stalker,” cnn.com, February 26; “Man Is Convicted of Stalking Spielberg,”
NYT
, March 5; “Spielberg stalker Norman eligible for life sentence,”
DV
, March 5; Matt Krasnowski, “Man convicted of stalking Spielberg,”
Outlook
, March 5; Sue McAllister, “Declared a Danger, Spielberg Stalker Gets Sentence of 25 Years to Life,”
LAT
, June 18; and “Spielberg stalker gets 25-year-to-life sentence,”
HR
, June 18. Spielberg’s comment “the toughest price” is from Goodwin, “Spielberg’s D-day.” A “Grand Jury Transcript Concerning the Steven Spielberg Stalker” (County of Los Angeles, California, 1997) was posted by
Court TV Online
in 1998.

People
reported on the Diana Louisa Napolis stalker case in “Legal Matters,” November 4, 2002, and on Spielberg’s restraining order against Christopher Richard Hahn in Stephen M. Silverman, “Spielberg Restrains Aspiring Actor,” February 8, 2002. The 2000 case of the imposter “Jonathan Taylor Spielberg” (Anoushirvan D. Fakhran) was discussed in “Legal Briefs,”
HR
, March 11 and 24 and June 9; and James Bone, “Iranian Spielberg impostor facing deportation from US,”
Times
(London), September 2.

Spielberg’s self-description as a “control freak” is from Dubner. Spielberg’s joke that smoking cigars makes him look like John Ford, the story about his bald spot, and Kate’s description of “Steven Central” are from Corliss and Ressner. Spielberg discussed his and his children’s home movies in Jim Windolf, “Q&A: Steven Spielberg,”
Vanity Fair
online, January 2, 2008. The information on Spielberg’s grandson, Luke Gavigan, and his father, Christopher Gavigan, is from Jessica Capshaw’s entry on
Wikipedia
and from “On the Town: Spielberg’s Support,”
weblogs
on variety.com, April 17, 2008. Spielberg’s comment about not being a great man to his children and Geffen’s observation on Spielberg as a father are from Reed, “Steven Spielberg.” The Spielberg family storytelling rituals are discussed in Grover, “Steven Spielberg: The Storyteller.” Arnold Spielberg’s comment on why Steven is a “mature guy” is from Corliss and Ressner. Kate Capshaw discussed Steven’s response to her career in “Star in Whatever Movie You Want, As Long as Dinner’s on the Table Every Night,”
New Woman
, February 1998. Spielberg’s admission that he hasn’t had problems at airports is from the DreamWorks documentary
Landing: Airport Stories
(2004) on the DVD edition of
Catch Me If You Can
. His fear of flying was reported by Capshaw in Grover, “Steven Spielberg: The Storyteller.” The comments on Spielberg’s personality by Janusz Kaminski and Tony Kushner are from David Mermelstein, “Steven’s Even Hand at Helm,”
DV
, January 9, 2009.

Spielberg’s stipulation that DreamWorks not make more than nine movies a year is reported in Kenneth Turan, “The Thrill Isn’t Gone,”
LAT
, December 28, 1998. Kimmel discusses DreamWorks in this period in
The Dream Team
. The 2001 lawsuit over
An Everlasting Piece
was reported in Patrick Goldstein, “Producer Sues DreamWorks, Saying It ‘Suppressed’ Film,”
LAT
, February 13; and Harry Guerin, “Piece of mind—
An Everlasting Piece
,” rte.ie (Ireland), March 22. For press commentary (2000) on the effect of the
American Beauty
best-picture Oscar, see Rick Lyman, “Oscar Victory Finally Lifts the Cloud for DreamWorks,”
NYT
, March 28; and Paul F. Duke, “D’Works: What Lies Beneath?”
Variety
, July 24. Spike Lee’s criticism of
The Legend of Bagger Vance
(and other films dealing with a “magical, mystical Negro” character) is from Susan Gonzalez, “Director Spike Lee slams ‘same old’ black stereotypes in today’s films,”
Yale Bulletin & Calendar
, March 2, 2001. Spielberg’s comment about working for other people is from Ian Johnstone, “The man with a monster talent,”
Sunday Times
(London), May 25, 1997. Spielberg described himself as an “independent working in the Hollywood mainstream” in Matt Wolf, “Hollywood Diary,”
Times
(London), 2001 (clipping at Margaret Herrick
Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences). His comment “I’m able to have the freedom” is from Michael Tunison, “Spielberg at War,”
Entertainment Today
, July 24, 1998. Spielberg called Universal his “birthplace” in Merissa Marr and Kate Kelly, “Universal Pictures Chairman Jumps to Paramount,”
Wall Street Journal
, February 27, 2006. Lisa Schwarzbaum’s description of
Shrek
is from “Forest Grump: DreamWorks Takes Playful Aim at Some Mouse House Icons in Its Delightful New Animated Feature
Shrek,” Entertainment Weekly
, May 25, 2001.

Spielberg’s recollections of his relationship with Stanley Kubrick are from his 1999 speech at the DGA memorial for Kubrick (the event was attended by the author); Rachel Abramowitz, “Regarding Stanley,”
LAT
, May 6, 2001; Jenny Cooney Carrillo, “The Steven & Stanley Story,” urbancinefile.com, September 6, 2001; and Bryan Appleyard, “Steven Spielberg interview,”
Sunday Times
(London), June 2002. Kirk Honeycutt reported on the DGA memorial in “Kubrick left Spielberg pic behind,”
HR
, May 17, 1999; Spielberg’s decision to go ahead with
A.I. Artificial Intelligence
was reported by Richard Brooks in “Spielberg to take charge of unfinished Kubrick Movie,”
Sunday Times
(London), September 5, 1999. Kubrick’s remark “This is much closer” and Spielberg’s comments “People pretend to think,” “The whole last twenty minutes,” and “The teddy bear” are from Joe Leydon, “Steven Spielberg and Tom Cruise,” MovingPictureShow.com, June 20, 2002. Spielberg also comments on the film in Schickel’s documentary
Spielberg on Spielberg
. The Japanese ad campaign for the film (2001) was reported in Don Groves, “
A.I.
’s foreign flavor,”
DV,
July 16; and the Japanese box-office results in Mark Schilling, “Spielberg’s
A.I.
makes it big in Japan,”
Screen International
, July 6.

Kubrick’s brother-in-law Jan Harlan (an executive producer on
A.I.
) and Jane M. Struthers edited
A.I. Artificial Intelligence: From Stanley Kubrick to Steven Spielberg: The Vision Behind the Film
, Thames & Hudson, London and New York, 2009, with commentaries by Harlan, a foreword by Spielberg, and concept drawings for the production by Chris Baker. That book includes Kubrick’s comment “One of the fascinating questions” and his note about David and Monica; Baker’s report on the Flesh Fair; and information on the toning-down of the Rouge City sequences. Kubrick’s work on
A.I.
is also discussed in Abramowitz and in Gregory Feeley, “The Masterpiece a Master Couldn’t Get Right,”
NYT
, July 18, 1999. The literary source of
A.I.
is Brian W. Aldiss’s short story “Super-Toys Last All Summer Long,”
Harper’s Bazaar
, December 1969; his annotated version is reproduced in the Harlan-Struthers book. See also Aldiss’s “Foreword: Attempting to Please” in his collection
Supertoys Last All Summer Long: and Other Stories of Future Time
, St. Martin’s Griffin, New York, 2001. Ian Watson described his work on
A.I.
in “My Adventures with Stanley Kubrick,”
Playboy
, August 1999; parts of Watson’s treatment are reproduced in the Harlan-Struthers book. Kubrick’s work with Aldiss and other writers on the script is discussed in that book as well as by Feeley and by John Lippman, “The Unsung Authors Behind
A.I.,” Wall Street Journal
, July 6, 2001. Kubrick’s abandonment of his
Aryan Papers
project is discussed in Honeycutt, “Kubrick back to the future via Warners
AI,” HR
, November 2, 1993; and in Brooks; Scott Von Doviak, “Reconstructing Stanley Kubrick’s
Aryan Papers,” The Screengrab
, nerve.com, January 5, 2009; Vincent LoBrutto,
Stanley Kubrick: A Biography
, Dutton Plume, New York, 1997; and the 2009 documentary film
Unfolding the Aryan Papers
.

Spielberg’s 2000 health crisis was reported in James Barron with Rick Lyman and Glenn Collins, “Public Lives: Kidney Surgery for Spielberg,”
NYT
, February 8; “Recuperating,”
LAT
, February 8; Mitchell Fink and Corky Siemaszko, “Spielberg has kidney removed,”
New York Daily News
, February 8; “Spielberg undergoes kidney surgery,”
DV
, February 8; Beth Laski, “Spielberg recovering from surgery,”
HR
, February 8; and “Steven’s Surgery,”
People
, February 21. That the doctor who removed Spielberg’s kidney, Stuart Holden, is a “specialist in urological oncology” is reported in his biography on the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center (Los Angeles) Web site, cedars-sinai.org. Holden
became the director of the Louis Warschaw Prostate Cancer Center at Cedars-Sinai in 2000, according to his biography at the Tower Urology Web site, towerurology.com.

John F. Kennedy’s phrase “a nation of immigrants” serves as the title of his pamphlet published by the Anti-Defamation League in 1959, revised and published posthumously by Harper & Row, New York, 1964, with an introduction by Robert F. Kennedy. Spielberg’s anecdote about people asking him to make funny movies, and his comment “I look at the world,” are from “
Spiegel
Interview with Steven Spielberg: ‘I Would Die for Israel,’”
Der Spiegel
(Germany), January 26, 2006.

The source of the film
Minority Report
(2002), Philip K. Dick’s short story “The Minority Report,” was first published in
Fantastic Universe
, January 1956. In the DreamWorks documentary
The World of “Minority Report”: An Introduction
(2002), on the DVD edition, Spielberg discusses assembling a think tank of experts to advise him on creating the world for the film. Richard Corliss’s description of the film’s style is from his review “Being Tom Cruise,”
Time
, June 16, 2002; Jason P. Vest discusses the film in
Future Imperfect: Philip K. Dick at the Movies
, Praeger, New York, 2007. David Edelstein criticized the film’s coda in his
Slate
review, “Blame Runner,” June 21, 2002. Spielberg’s concern about “the whole notion” is from Stephen Galloway, “Dialogue with Steven Spielberg,”
HR
, January 9, 2003. Spielberg’s statement “Right now” is from Rick Lyman, “Spielberg Challenges the Big Fluff of Summer,”
NYT
, June 16, 2002. Benjamin Franklin’s quotation about liberty and safety is from “Pennsylvania Assembly: Reply to the Governor, November 11, 1755,” published by Franklin; it also appears in
The Papers of Benjamin Franklin
, vol. 6, ed. Leonard W. Labaree, Yale University and American Philosophical Society, New Haven, 1963. Joseph McBride quotes Franklin in reference to Spielberg’s backtracking on personal freedoms in “Thoughtcrimes: George Orwell and other futurists warned us,”
Written
By
, October 2004. Spielberg’s other comments about civil liberties include: “We’re giving up some of our freedom,” in John Powers, “Majority Report,”
LA Weekly
, June 27, 2002; “Thematically, it was a compelling message,” in Galloway, “Dialogue with Steven Spielberg”; and “I’m not an advocate,” in Leydon, “Steven Spielberg and Tom Cruise.” Spielberg’s support of George W. Bush was reported in “Cruise and Spielberg back war,” bbc.co.uk, September 26, 2002; Spielberg’s criticism of the Iraq War is from “
Spiegel
Interview with Steven Spielberg: ‘I Would Die for Israel.’” D. H. Lawrence’s comment “Never trust the artist” is from his book
Studies in Classic American Literature
, Thomas Seltzer, New York, 1923.