How Jurassic Park Earned Steven Spielberg His College Degree; And That Time Someone Threw a Live Hand Grenade at George W. Bush
Spielberg has pretty much always had a passion for filmmaking, going all the way back to his early childhood in Phoenix, when he used his family's 8mm camera to create short films starring his friends and siblings. Some of them were even screened at local theaters. While he was hardly even close to a finished product by the time he left home and headed west to study at California State University, Long Beach (CSULB) in 1965, his level of experience still far exceeded that of the average teenager.
He kept on working both formally and privately during his first couple years there, and it paid off big time in 1969, when his 22-minute short film ‘Amblin’ - for which his production company is named - so impressed the Universal Studios executives attending that year’s Atlanta Film Festival that they offered him a professional contract. Naturally, there was no need to pursue a degree in filmmaking after that, and so he dropped out of school in the summer before his senior year.
He spent his first few years in Hollywood writing screenplays and directing episodes of TV shows like Marcus Welby, MD; Owen Marshall, Counsellor at Law; and, most notably, Columbo, but his first taste of real success came in 1974, with the release of his first full length feature: Sugarland Express. Though not much of a commercial success, it was a hit among critics, and eventually went on to win the Best Screenplay award at that year’s Cannes Film Festival. It was also his first collaboration with legendary composer John Williams, who he’d later work with on the 1975 blockbuster that would launch his own equally legendary career: Jaws.
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