A Biography of George Lucas.
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George Walton Lucas Jr. (born May 14, 1944) is an American filmmaker and entrepreneur. Lucas is known for creating the Star Wars and Indiana Jones franchises and founding Lucasfilm, LucasArts and Industrial Light & Magic. He served as chairman of Lucasfilm before selling it to The Walt Disney Company in 2012. After graduating from the University of Southern California in 1967, Lucas co-founded American Zoetrope with filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola. Lucas wrote and directed THX 1138 (1971), based on his earlier student short Electronic Labyrinth: THX 1138 4EB, which was a critical success but a financial failure. His next work as a writer-director was the film American Graffiti (1973), inspired by his youth in early 1960s Modesto, California, and produced through the newly founded Lucasfilm. The film was critically and commercially successful, and received five Academy Award nominations including Best Picture. Lucas's next film, the epic space opera Star Wars (1977), had a troubled production but was a surprise hit, becoming the highest-grossing film at the time, winning six Academy Awards and sparking a cultural phenomenon. Lucas produced and co-wrote the sequels The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Return of the Jedi (1983). With director Steven Spielberg, he created, produced and co-wrote the Indiana Jones films Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), Temple of Doom (1984), The Last Crusade (1989) and Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008). He also produced and wrote a variety of films and television series through Lucasfilm between the 1970s and the 2010s. In 1997, Lucas rereleased the Star Wars trilogy as part of a special edition featuring several alterations; home media versions with further changes were released in 2004 and 2011. He returned to directing with a Star Wars prequel trilogy comprising The Phantom Menace (1999), Attack of the Clones (2002), and Revenge of the Sith (2005). He last collaborated on the CGI-animated television series Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008–2014, 2020), the war film Red Tails (2012), and the CGI film Strange Magic (2015). Lucas is one of history's most financially successful filmmakers and has been nominated for four Academy Awards. His films are among the 100 highest-grossing movies at the North American box office, adjusted for ticket-price inflation. Lucas is considered a significant figure of the 20th-century New Hollywood movement. Description above from the Wikipedia article George Lucas, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Samuel Leroy Jackson (born December 21, 1948) is an American actor and producer. One of the most widely recognized actors of his generation, the films in which he has appeared have collectively grossed over $27 billion worldwide, making him the second highest-grossing actor of all time. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences gave him an Academy Honorary Award in 2022 as "A cultural icon whose dynamic work has resonated across genres and generations and audiences worldwide". Jackson started his career on stage making his professional theatre debut in Mother Courage and her Children in 1980 at The Public Theatre. From 1981 to 1983 he originated the role of Private Louis Henderson in A Soldier's Play Off-Broadway. He also originated the role of Boy Willie in August Wilson's The Piano Lesson in 1987 at the Yale Repertory Theatre. He returned to the play in the 2022 Broadway revival playing Doaker Charles. Jackson early film roles include Coming to America (1988), Goodfellas (1990), Patriot Games (1992), Juice (1992), True Romance (1993), and Jurassic Park (1993), Menace II Society (1993), and Fresh (1994). His collaborations with Spike Lee led to greater prominence with films such as School Daze (1988), Do the Right Thing (1989), Mo' Better Blues (1990), Jungle Fever (1991), Oldboy (2013), and Chi-Raq (2015). Jackson's breakout role was in Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction (1994) which earned him a BAFTA Award win and a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. He further collaborated with Tarantino, acting in Jackie Brown (1997), Django Unchained (2012), and The Hateful Eight (2015). He's known for having appeared in a number of big-budget films, including Die Hard with a Vengeance (1995), A Time to Kill (1996), The Long Kiss Goodnight (1996), The Negotiator (1997), Deep Blue Sea (1999), Unbreakable (2000), Shaft (2000) and its reboot (2019), XXX (2002), S.W.A.T. (2003), Coach Carter (2005), Snakes on a Plane (2006), Kingsman: The Secret Service (2014), Kong: Skull Island (2017), and Glass (2019). He also gained widespread recognition as the Jedi Mace Windu in the Star Wars prequel trilogy (1999–2005), later voicing the role in the animated film Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) and the video game Lego Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2011). With his permission, his likeness was used for the Ultimate version of the Marvel Comics character Nick Fury; he subsequently played Fury in 11 Marvel Cinematic Universe films, beginning with a cameo appearance in Iron Man (2008), as well as guest-starring in the television series Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. He will reprise this role in the upcoming Disney+ series Secret Invasion, which is set to premiere on June 21, 2023. Jackson has provided his voice for several animated films, documentaries, television series, and video games, including Lucius Best / Frozone in the Pixar films The Incredibles (2004) and Incredibles 2 (2018).
John Randal Kleiser is an American film director and producer, perhaps best known for directing the 1978 musical film Grease.
Walter Scott Murch (born July 12, 1943) is an American film editor, director, writer and sound designer. With a career stretching back to 1969, including work on THX 1138, Apocalypse Now, The Godfather I, II, and III, American Graffiti, The Conversation, and The English Patient, with three Academy Award wins (from nine nominations: six for picture editing and three for sound mixing), he has been referred to by Roger Ebert as "the most respected film editor and sound designer in the modern cinema."
Haskell Wexler (February 6, 1922 – December 27, 2015) is an American cinematographer, producer, and director. Wexler was judged to be one of film history's ten most influential cinematographers in a survey of the members of the International Cinematographers Guild. He won the Academy Award for Best Cinematography twice, in 1966 and 1976 in five nominations. Description above from the Wikipedia article Haskell Wexler, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Steven Allan Spielberg (born December 18, 1946) is an American film director, writer and producer. A major figure of the New Hollywood era and pioneer of the modern blockbuster, he is the most commercially successful director of all time. Spielberg is the recipient of various accolades, including three Academy Awards, a Kennedy Center honor, four Directors Guild of America Awards, two BAFTA Awards, a Cecil B. DeMille Award and an AFI Life Achievement Award. Seven of his films have been inducted into the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant". Spielberg was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, and grew up in Phoenix, Arizona. He moved to California and studied film in college. After directing several episodes for television including Night Gallery and Columbo, he directed the television film Duel (1971) which gained acclaim from critics and audiences. He made his directorial film debut with The Sugarland Express (1974), and became a household name with the 1975 summer blockbuster Jaws. He then directed huge box office successes Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982) and the Indiana Jones original trilogy (1981-89). Spielberg subsequently explored drama in the acclaimed The Color Purple (1985) and Empire of the Sun (1987). After a brief hiatus, Spielberg directed the science fiction thriller Jurassic Park (1993), the highest-grossing film ever at the time, and the Holocaust drama Schindler's List (1993), which has often been listed as one of the greatest films ever made. He won the Academy Award for Best Director for the latter and for the 1998 World War II epic Saving Private Ryan. Spielberg continued in the 2000s with science fiction films A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001), Minority Report (2002) and War of the Worlds (2005). He also directed the adventure films The Adventures of Tintin (2011) and Ready Player One (2018); the historical dramas Amistad (1997), Munich (2005), War Horse (2011), Lincoln (2012), Bridge of Spies (2015) and The Post (2017); the musical West Side Story (2021); and the semi-autobiographical drama The Fabelmans (2022). He has been a producer on several successful films, including Poltergeist (1982), Gremlins (1984), Back to the Future (1985) and Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) as well as the miniseries Band of Brothers (2001). Spielberg co-founded Amblin Entertainment and DreamWorks, and has served as a producer for many successful films and television series. He is also known for his long collaboration with the composer John Williams, with whom he has worked for all but five of his feature films. Several of Spielberg's works are among the highest-grossing and greatest films all time. Premiere ranked him first place in the list of 100 Most Powerful People in Movies in 2003. In 2013, Time listed him as one of the 100 most influential people.
Francis Ford Coppola (born April 7, 1939) is an American film director, producer and screenwriter. He is widely acclaimed as one of Hollywood's most celebrated and influential film directors. He epitomized the group of filmmakers known as the New Hollywood, which included George Lucas, Martin Scorsese, Robert Altman, Woody Allen and William Friedkin, who emerged in the early 1970s with unconventional ideas that challenged contemporary filmmaking. He co-authored the script for Patton, winning the Academy Award in 1970. His directorial fame escalated with the release of The Godfather in 1972. The film revolutionized movie-making in the gangster genre, garnering universal laurels from critics and public alike. It went on to win three Academy Awards, including his second, which he won for Best Adapted Screenplay, and it was instrumental in cementing his position as one of the prominent American film directors. Coppola followed it with an equally successful sequel The Godfather Part II, which became the first ever sequel to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. The film received yet higher praises than its predecessor, and gave him three Academy Awards—for Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Director and Best Picture. In the same year was released The Conversation, which he directed, produced and wrote. The film went on to win the Palme d'Or at the 1974 Cannes Film Festival. His next directorial venture was Apocalypse Now in 1979, and it was as notorious for its lengthy and troubled production as it was critically acclaimed for its vivid and stark depiction of the Vietnam War. It won his second Palme d'Or at the 1979 Cannes Film Festival. Although some of Coppola's ventures in the 1980s and early 1990s were critically lauded, Coppola's later work has not met the same level of critical and commercial success as his '70s films. Description above from the Wikipedia article Francis Ford Coppola, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Candace June "Candy" Clark (born June 20, 1947) is an American actress and model. She is well known for her roles as Debbie Dunham in the 1973 film American Graffiti, for which she received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, and Mary Lou in the 1976 film The Man Who Fell to Earth. Description above from the Wikipedia article Candy Clark, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Robert Osborne was longtime (and the original) primary host of Turner Classic Movies (TCM) cable television channel. He was also an actor, film historian, author, columnist, presenter, and general TCM representative.
Ronald William Howard (born March 1, 1954) is an American filmmaker and actor. Howard first came to prominence as a child actor, guest-starring in several television series, including an episode of The Twilight Zone. He gained national attention for playing young Opie Taylor, the son of Sheriff Andy Taylor (played by Andy Griffith) in the sitcom The Andy Griffith Show from 1960 through 1968. During this time, he also appeared in the musical film The Music Man (1962), a critical and commercial success. He was credited as Ronny Howard in his film and television appearances from 1959 to 1973. Howard was cast in one of the lead roles in the coming-of-age film American Graffiti (1973), which received widespread acclaim and became one of the most profitable films in history. The following year, Howard became a household name for playing Richie Cunningham in the sitcom Happy Days, a role he would play from 1974 through 1984. Howard continued appearing in films during this time, such as the western film The Shootist (1976) and the comedy film Grand Theft Auto (1977), which also marked his directorial debut. In 1984, Howard left Happy Days to focus on directing, producing and occasionally writing variety films and television series. His films include the science-fiction/fantasy Cocoon (1985), the fantasy Willow (1988), the thriller Backdraft (1991), the historical docudrama Apollo 13 (1995), the Christmas comedy How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000), the biographical drama A Beautiful Mind (2001), the biographical sports drama Cinderella Man (2005), the thriller The Da Vinci Code (2006), the historical drama Frost/Nixon (2008), Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018), and the documentary Pavarotti (2019). For A Beautiful Mind, Howard won the Academy Award for Best Director and Academy Award for Best Picture. He was nominated again for the same awards for Frost/Nixon. In 2003, Howard was awarded the National Medal of Arts. He was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame in 2013. Howard has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his contributions in the television and motion pictures industries. Description above from the Wikipedia article Ron Howard, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Bill Moyers is an American journalist and political commentator. He served as the eleventh White House Press Secretary under the Johnson administration from 1965 to 1967. He was a director of the Council on Foreign Relations, from 1967 to 1974. He also worked as a network TV news commentator for ten years. - Wikipedia
Carrie Frances Fisher (October 21, 1956 - December 27, 2016) was an American actress, novelist, screenwriter, and lecturer. Daughter of the famous actors Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher, she gained fame for her portrayal of Princess Leia Organa in the original Star Wars trilogy. Her novel Postcards from the Edge was also a bestseller, for which she wrote a screenplay to the film of the same name.
Dennis Muren, A.S.C. (born November 1, 1946) is an American film visual effects artist and supervisor. He has worked on the films of George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, and James Cameron, among others, and has won nine Oscars in total: eight for Best Visual Effects and a Technical Achievement Academy Award. The Visual Effects Society has called him "a perpetual student, teacher, innovator, and mentor." He has been identified as "a pioneer in bringing a new wave of visual effects films to the public, opening the doors for screenwriters and directors to tell stories never before possible with a new realism through the use of his skills in cinematic arts and advanced technologies." According to Spielberg, Muren "set the example at Industrial Light & Magic for visual effects excellence with effects that add strong, appropriate emotion to a shot and fit seamlessly into a movie." Description above from the Wikipedia article Dennis Muren, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Benjamin "Ben" Burtt, Jr. (born July 12, 1948) is an American sound designer for the films Star Wars (1977), Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978), Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989) and WALL-E (2008). He is also a film editor and director, screenwriter, and voice actor. He is most notable for creating many of the iconic sound effects heard in the Star Wars film franchise, including the "voice" of R2-D2, the lightsaber hum and the heavy-breathing sound of Darth Vader. Description above from the Wikipedia article Ben Burtt, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
James Cameron was born in Kapuskasing, Ontario, Canada, on August 16, 1954. He moved to the USA in 1971. The son of an engineer, he majored in physics at California State University but, after graduating, drove a truck to support his screen-writing ambition. He landed his first professional film job as art director, miniature-set builder, and process-projection supervisor on Roger Corman's Battle Beyond the Stars (1980) and debuted as a director with Piranha Part Two: The Spawning (1981) the following year. In 1984, he wrote and directed The Terminator (1984), a futuristic action-thriller starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Michael Biehn, and Linda Hamilton. It was a huge success. After this came a string of successful science-fiction action films such as Aliens (1986) and Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991). Cameron is now one of the most sought-after directors in Hollywood. He was formerly married to producer Gale Anne Hurd, who produced several of his films. He married Kathryn Bigelow in 1989.
Frank Wilton Marshall (born September 13, 1946) is an American film producer and director, often working in collaboration with his wife, Kathleen Kennedy. With Kennedy and Steven Spielberg, he was one of the founders of Amblin Entertainment. He is a partner with Kennedy in The Kennedy/Marshall Company, a film production company formed in 1991, which signed a new contract with Columbia Pictures effective April 1, 2009 and in force through to October 31, 2011.
He was born in Ballymena, County Antrim, Northern Ireland and educated at Saint Patrick's College, Ballymena Technical College and Queen's University Belfast. He moved to Dublin after university to further his acting career, joining the renowned Abbey Theatre. In the early 1990s, he moved again to the United States, where the wide acclaim for his performance in Schindler's List led to more high-profile work. He is widowed and lives in New York with his two sons. An Irish actor who has been nominated for an Oscar, a BAFTA and three Golden Globe Awards. He has starred in a number of notable roles including Oskar Schindler in Schindler's List, Michael Collins in Michael Collins, Peyton Westlake in Darkman, Jean Valjean in Les Misérables, Qui-Gon Jinn in Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, Alfred Kinsey in Kinsey, Ras Al Ghul in Batman Begins and the voice of Aslan in The Chronicles of Narnia film series. He has also starred in several other notable films, from major Hollywood studio releases (ie. Excalibur, The Dead Pool, Nell, Rob Roy, The Haunting, Love Actually, Kingdom of Heaven, Taken, Clash of the Titans, The A-Team, Unknown) to smaller arthouse films (ie. Deception, Breakfast on Pluto, Chloe). Description from the Wikipedia article Liam Neeson, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Legendary Hollywood Icon Harrison Ford was born on July 13, 1942 in Chicago, Illinois. His family history includes a strong lineage of actors, radio personalities, and models. Ford attended public high school in Park Ridge, Illinois where he was a member of the school Radio Station WMTH. Ford worked as the lead voice for sports reporting at WMTH for several years. Acting wasn't a major interest to Ford until his junior year at Ripon College when he first took an acting class. Ford's career started in 1964 when he travelled to California in search of a voice-over job. He never received that position, but instead signed a contract with Columbia Pictures where he earned $150 weekly to play small fill in roles in various films. Through the '60s Ford worked on several TV shows including Gunsmoke, Ironside, Kung Fu, and American Style. It wasn't until 1967 that he received his first credited role in the Western film, A Time for Killing. Dissatisfied with the meager roles he was being offered, Ford took a hiatus from acting to work as a self-employed carpenter. This seemingly odd diversion turned out to be a blessing in disguise for Harrison's acting career when he was soon hired by famous film producer George Lucas. This was a turning point in Ford's life that led to him be casted in milestone roles such as Han Solo and Indiana Jones. Since his most famous roles in the original Star Wars trilogy and Raiders of the Lost Ark, Ford has appeared in over 40 films. Many criticize his late-career work, saying his performances have been lackluster, leading to commercially disappointing films. Ford has always worked hard to protect his off-screen private life, keeping details about his children and marriages quiet. He has a total of five children including one recent adoption with third and current wife Calista Flockhart. In addition to acting, Ford is passionate about environmental conservation, aviation, and archeology.