Steven Spielberg (108 page)

Sources on the filming of
Escape
to
Nowhere
include the author’s interviews with Arnold Spielberg, Jim Sollenberger, Barry Sollenberger, and Chris Pischke; and also Crawley; Taylor; the Clark, Jarrett, Janos, and Rader articles; and Poster’s interview with Spielberg. Barry Sollenberger also recalled the filming in
Citizen
Steve.
Clips from
Escape
to
Nowhere
were shown in
The
Barbara
Walters
Special
(1994) and
The
American
Film
Institute
Salute
to
Steven
Spielberg
(A&E; version). For sources on
Firelight,
see notes for the Prologue.

Spielberg’s involvement with Ernest G. Sauer’s film
Journey
to
the
Unknown
was recalled by its lead actor, Haven Peters, who also provided a copy of the premiere program. Spielberg recalled his visit to the set of
PT 109
in Army Archerd’s column,
DV,
December 1, 1992.

The principal sources on Spielberg’s first visit to Universal Studios are the author’s interviews with Charles A. (Chuck) Silvers and Arnold Spielberg. Steven’s various accounts of his first visit are from the articles by Hull (1969), Kramer (1970), Cameron (1971), Adler (1972), Corliss (1985), and Gross (1996). He recalled obtaining a gate pass in Loynd, “Shorts Makers Get Short Cut to Success Via Short.”
HR.

The chapter title and some of Spielberg’s other comments about his senior year at Saratoga (Ca.) High School are from his January 11, 1994, letter to the
San
Jose
Mercury
News,
“Sometimes We Take the Abuse in Silence.”

Spielberg’s attendance dates, September 1964–June 1965, were provided by the school’s current principal, Dr. Kevin Skelly. Other information on the school came from the author’s interviews with Spielberg’s fellow students and Saratoga faculty members, and from
The
Falcon
(school newspaper), 1964–65;
The
Talisman
(yearbook), 1965; and the
Saratoga
News,
1964–65. Information about Spielberg’s academic record is from faculty members and from Don Shull. The dates of Spielberg’s prior attendance at Los Gatos High School, March–June 1964, were provided by that school’s registrar, Jan Heizer. The Spielbergs’ Sarahills Drive address in Saratoga was documented in a December 16, 1964,
Saratoga
News
column on newly arrived residents.

Background on Saratoga is drawn largely from the author’s interviews with Spielberg’s friends, neighbors, classmates, and Saratoga High faculty members, especially former social studies teacher Hubert E. (Hugh) Roberts. Other sources on Saratoga include Florence R. Cunningham,
Saratoga’s
First
Hundred
Years,
Panorama West Books, 1967; League of Women Voters of Los Gatos–Saratoga–Monte Sereno,
Saratoga
, 
1991; Elizabeth Ansnes,
Saratoga’s
Heritage:
A
Survey
of
Historic
Resources,
City of Saratoga Heritage Preservation Commission, 1993; and Leigh Weimers,
Guide
to
Silicon
Valley:
An
Insider’s
Tip
for
Techies
and
Tourists,
Western Tanager Press, 1993.

Spielberg’s memories of Saratoga are from his letter to the
Mercury
News;
The
Bar
bara
Walters
Special
(1994); and the articles by Ansen, “Spielberg’s Obsession”; Spillman; Weinraub; and Wuntch. The reactions of some of his former classmates were reported by Connie Skipitares in “Spielberg Anti-Semitism Charges Disturb Saratogans,”
Mercury
News,
December 18, 1993, which also quoted Spielberg spokesman Marvin Levy.
Falcon
writer Austiaj Parineh commented on the controversy in “Spielberg’s Claims Illogically Rattle Saratogans,” January 21, 1994. Don Shull’s letter to the
Mercury
News,
“If Spielberg Had Been Hurt, I Would Have Known,” was printed on January 1, 1994; Gene Ward Smith’s letter to the paper, “Teen-age Spielberg Aspired to Reach a Mass Audience,” appeared on January 15, 1994. Smith’s other comments on Spielberg and Saratoga are from his interviews with the author and from his February 25 and March 28, 1994, letters to the author; Spielberg also recalled his senior year in a January 14, 1994, letter to Smith.

Spielberg’s revelation about his sexual initiation was reported in “Spielberg Defers to Prophet Lucas,”
Variety,
June 2, 1982. His work on
The
Falcon
in 1964–65 was remembered by his journalism teacher, Bert Pfister; the paper’s editor, Bonnie Parker Bartman; and by other fellow staff members: Mike Augustine, Diana Hart Deem, James Fletcher, Nancy Frishberg, and Philip H. Pennypacker. Spielberg’s
Falcon
articles include “Shull Travels” (on Don Shull and his family), October 2, 1964; “Athlete’s Feat,” October 23, 1964; and “Fluke Plagues Varsity,” March 12, 1965. His journalistic bent was mentioned in the class prophecy, “Twenty Years Hence,”
The
Falcon,
June 16, 1965.

Information on the school play
Twelve
Angry
Jurors
(1965) is from the author’s interview with Mike Augustine;
The
Talisman;
“Senior Play,”
The
Falcon,
February 5; and Karen Mitchell’s column,
Saratoga
News,
February 17. Information on Spielberg’s
Senior
Sneak
Day
film is from interviews with various classmates and the Skipitares article; the dates and place of the senior party are from Mitchell’s column of June 23, 1965.

Sources on Universal Studios include
DV’s
Universal Pictures 75th anniversary issue, February 6, 1990, which includes Joseph McBride, “Business 101” (on the studio’s theatrical films from 1970 through 1990). Other background on Universal includes Clive Hirschhorn,
The
Universal
Story,
Crown, 1983; and Dan E. Moldea,
Dark
Victory:
Ronald
Reagan,
MCA,
and
the
Mob,
Viking, 1986.

Spielberg’s 1977 comment to Ray Bradbury was reported by Bradbury in “The Turkey That Attacked New York,” his introduction to Jim Wynorski, ed.,
They
Came
from
Outer
Space,
Doubleday, 1980. Quotes on Jewish humor are from Albert Memmi,
The
Liberation
of
the
Jew,
Orion Press, 1966; and Leo Rosten,
The
Joys
of
Yiddish,
McGraw-Hill, 1968. Friedrich Nietzsche’s observation on a joke being “an epitaph on an emotion” is from his
Miscellaneous
Maxims
and
Opinions
(1879). Lenny Bruce’s remark “Negroes are all Jews” is quoted in Alan M. Dershowitz,
Chutzpah,
Little, Brown, 1991. Spielberg recalled his first viewing of
Dr.
Strangelove
in Eric Lefcowitz,
“Dr.
Strangelove
Turns 30. Can It Still Be Trusted?”
NYT,
January 30, 1994; the film’s first showings in San Jose were listed in the
Mercury
News
for the weekend of March 20–22, 1964. Spielberg’s comment on growing up in the 1960s is quoted in Taylor. He told Hodenfield about seeing a psychiatrist and not being part of the drug culture in “The Sky Is Full of Questions!!” His comment about staying in college to avoid the draft is quoted in Crawley. Saratoga classmate Douglas H. Stuart recalled Spielberg’s failure to take the ACT exam.

Information on the divorce of Spielberg’s parents is from documents in the Santa Clara County (Ca.) Superior Court:
Leah
Spielberg
vs.
Arnold
Spielberg
Complaint for Divorce, No. 178192, April 11, 1966, including a Property Settlement Agreement, April
1, 1966; Interlocutory Judgment of Divorce, April 20, 1966; and Final Judgment of Divorce, April 17, 1967. Other sources include the author’s interviews with Arnold Spielberg and Don Shull; and Steven’s comment in Margolis and Modderno.

“The Film School Generation” has been covered in the segment of that title in the 1995 TV series
American
Cinema
(PBS) and in such books as Michael Pye and Lynda Myles,
The
Movie
Brats:
How
the
Film
Generation
Took
Over
Hollywood;
Dale Pollock,
Skywalking:
The
Life
and
Films
of
George
Lucas,
Harmony Books, 1983; David Thompson and Ian Christie, eds.,
Scorsese
on
Scorsese,
Faber and Faber (London), 1989; Peter Cowie,
Coppola,
Scribner’s, 1990; Kevin Jackson, ed.,
Schrader on
Schrader,
Faber and Faber, 1990; Mary Pat Kelly, with forewords by Spielberg and Michael Powell,
Martin
Scorsese:
A Journey,
Thunder’s Mouth Press, 1991; Van Gunden,
Postmodern
Auteurs:
Coppola,
Lucas,
De
Palma,
Spielberg
and
Scorsese;
and Charles Champlin, with forewords by Spielberg and Francis Coppola,
George
Lucas:
The
Creative
Impulse:
Lucas
film’s
First
Twenty
Years,
Harry N. Abrams, 1992.
Time
spotted the trend in “The Student Movie Makers,” February 2, 1968.

Spielberg recalled his first encounter with Lucas in his foreword to Champlin’s book and in “The Film School Generation”; their donations to USC were reported in Dale Pollock, “Lucas & Spielberg—Investing in Film-School Futures,”
LAT,
September 6, 1981. Information on Spielberg’s honorary doctorate from USC and his election to the school’s board of trustees is from “Spielberg New USC Trustee,”
DV,
September 17, 1996. Lucas recalled the “credo of film school” to Audie Bock, “George Lucas: An Interview,”
Take
One,
May 1979. The author interviewed such 1960s USC film school graduates as Gloria Katz, Willard Huyck, and Howard Kazanjian, and also Mike Medavoy, who became the agent for Spielberg and other prominent filmmakers of that generation.

Spielberg’s attendance dates at California State College (now California State University) at Long Beach, September 1965–January 1969, were provided by the school’s records office. Other information about Spielberg’s college years came from the school paper,
The
Forty-Niner,
1965–69, and yearbook,
The
Prospector,
1966–69 (his picture appears among the members of Theta Chi in the 1966 yearbook). Articles about Spielberg in
The
Forty-Niner
include Bruce Fortune,
“Great
Race
to Be Filmed by Students,” February 18, 1966; Thronson; and Bagala. Spielberg’s boast that he “didn’t learn a bloody thing” at the school was made to Howard Priest in
“Jaws,
Duel
Directing Product of Former LB Student,”
The
Forty-Niner,
November 13, 1974.

Sources on Spielberg’s 1965–67 filmmaking and his visits to Universal during his college years include the author’s interviews with Chuck Silvers, Arnold Spielberg, Tony Martinelli, Carl Pingitore, Richard Belding, Ralph Burris, Don Shull, Jeff Corey, Allen Daviau (also quoted from Crawley and from David Chell,
Moviemakers
at
Work,
Microsoft Press, 1987), and Tony Bill (who also spoke about Spielberg in 1967 to Bagala). Spielberg reported on his experiences at Universal in an undated letter to Shull; internal evidence, including references to the shooting of
The
Chase
and construction work at Universal, establishes that Spielberg wrote the letter in June 1965. Charlton Heston’s recollection of Spielberg’s visit to the set of
The
War
Lord
is from
I
n
the
Arena:
An
Autobiography,
Simon & Schuster, 1995. Sources on Spielberg’s attendance at Jeff Corey’s acting studio include the author’s interviews with Corey and Bill, as well as Patrick
McGilligan,
Jack’s
Life:
A
Biography
of Jack
Nicholson,
Norton, 1994.

Information on Universal TV programs of that period is from Larry James Gianakos,
Television
Drama
Series
Programming:
A
Comprehensive
Chronicle
1959–1975,
Scarecrow Press, 1978; James Robert Parish and Vincent Terrace,
The
Complete
Actors’
Televi
sion
Credits
1948–1988
(second edition), Scarecrow Press, 1989; and Christopher
Wicking and Tise Vahimagi,
The
American
Vein:
Directors
and
Directions
in
Television,
Dutton, 1979. Shooting dates on
Torn
Curtain
are from Donald Spoto,
The
Dark
Side
of
Genius:
The
Life
of
Alfred
Hitchcock,
Little, Brown, 1983. Spielberg reminisced to Ventura about his experiences with John Cassavetes; other information on
Faces
is from C. Robert Jennings, “Hollywood’s Accidental Artist of
Faces,
”
LAT,
February 16, 1969, and Ray Carney,
The
Films
of
John
Cassavetes:
Pragmatism,
Modernism
and
the
Movies,
Cambridge University Press, 1994. American Cinema Editors president George Grenville’s comment about Spielberg’s respect for editors is from Paula Parisi, “Spielberg ACE’s Filmmaker of ’80s,”
HR,
February 2, 1990.