The Adventures of Steven Spielberg
1946
Born, Cincinnati.
1949
Spielberg family moves to New Jersey.
1957
Family moves to Phoenix.
1957
Makes first film, The Last Train Wreck, using his dad's 8mm home-movie camera and his electric train set. Length: 3 minutes.
1959-1962
World War II drama, Escape to Nowhere, wins first prize in a statewide amateur film contest. Judges praise the film's special effects and battlefield scenes.
1963-1964
Firelight, his feature about alien abductions, grosses $800 at a local theater. Remade in '77 as Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
1964
Gets first studio job as a gofer for Universal. Family moves to northern California.
1965
Graduates high-school and enters California State University at Long Beach.
1966
Parents divorce.
1969
Makes Amblin, a 26-minute film about a pair of teenage hitchhikers that leads to a seven-year contract with Universal directing television shows. Quits college.
1974
Sugarland Express, Spielberg's first theatrical film, is released.
1975
Jaws, Spielberg's first blockbuster, opens on the Fourth of July weekend. Movie eventually takes in $260 million.
1979
Spielberg marries actress Amy Irving, and their son, Max, is born in 1985. The couple divorces in 1989.
1981
Raiders of the Lost Ark, the first of the Indiana Jones films, grosses $245 million and boosts his career.
1982
E.T., The ExtraTerrestrial, opens. A huge hit, it rakes in $400 million.
1984
Spielberg launches Amblin Entertainment to produce feature movies, television series, and children's cartoons.
1987
World War II epic Empire of the Sun, set in China, opens to rave reviews but takes in a paltry $22 million at the box office.
1991
Spielberg marries actress Kate Capshaw, one of the Indiana Jones heroines.
1993
Spielberg finishes both Jurassic Park and Schindler's List. Takes 3 years off from filmmaking.
1994
Spielberg wins Academy Award for Best Director for Schindler's List, which also wins Best Picture. Spielberg launches DreamWorks with partners Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen.
1997
Amistad opens. The story of African slaves who seize control of a Spanish slave ship barely breaks even.
1998
Saving Private Ryan opens in July.
RELATED ITEMS
 - THE STORYTELLER: How Hollywood's most successful director runs his creative empire
- TABLE: A Spielberg timeline
- TABLE: Inside the empire
- TABLE: Anatomy of a hit
- DREAMWORKS' SUMMER? With four movies set to open soon, this could be the studio's big breakout
- ONLINE ORIGINAL: MEANWHILE, AT DISNEY
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