Motion picture producer, director, and writer Steven Spielberg, creator of such immensely popular films as Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, and Raiders of the Lost Ark, is considered one of the most gifted and successful filmmakers of all time. With a powerful appeal among moviegoers of all ages, most of Spielberg's highest-grossing films examine the effects of horror or fantasy on mainstream, middle-class Americans. In Jaws, for example, a concerned police chief patrols the waters, stalking a killer shark that has been terrorizing swimmers from a once serene resort community. And in the enchanting E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, a loveable little alien who is accidentally left on Earth befriends a young boy living in a typical suburban neighborhood who then helps him return home. "Everything I do in my movies," remarked Spielberg in Time, "is a product of my homelife in suburban U.S.A. I can always trace a movie idea back to my childhood."
Spielberg was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1947 and was raised with his three younger sisters.
