Steven Spielberg (142 page)

The landmark 1971 TV movie
Duel
, with Dennis Weaver, vaulted Spielberg into the leading ranks of Hollywood filmmakers. “I knew that here was a very bright new director,” proclaimed David Lean after Duel played in theaters outside the United States. (
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences/Universal Pictures
)

A portrait of the artist as a young man, circa 1976. (
Columbia Pictures
)

The first Spielberg feature released to American theaters,
The Sugarland Express
(1974), was hailed by
New Yorker
reviewer Pauline Kael as “one of the most phenomenal debut films in the history of movies.” Spielberg shares a light moment with Goldie Hawn, William Atherton, and Michael Sacks on location in Texas. (
Universal Pictures
)

An unforgettable moment of movie terror—the opening of
Jaws
(1975), with Susan Backlinie as the
skinny-dipping
swimmer attacked by an unseen shark. For Spielberg, clad in a wet suit as he directed the young stuntwoman off Martha’s Vineyard, the filming was an excruciating ordeal he feared might ruin his promising career. But
Jaws
went on to break all box-office records. (
Universal Pictures
)

Two of Spielberg’s key collaborators on
Jaws
—film editor Verna Fields, with him on the beach at Martha’s Vineyard; and composer John Williams, whose music has become inseparable from the imagery of Spielberg’s films. (
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences/Universal Pictures; Columbia Pictures
)

Close Encounters of the Third Kind
(1977) was Spielberg’s dream project, his $19 million “remake” of
Firelight
. The UFO landing site in Spielberg’s science-fiction masterpiece was Devil’s Tower National Monument in Wyoming. (
Columbia Pictures
)

Spielberg selected this scene when asked to identify a single “master image” that sums up his work—the little boy in
Close Encounters
(Cary Guffey) opens his living-room door to see the “beautiful but awful light” emanating from a UFO. “And he’s very small, and it’s a very large door, and there’s a lot of promise or danger outside that door.” (
Columbia Pictures
)

Amy Irving with Spielberg at the Golden Globes ceremony in 1989, in the final months of their marriage. (
Collectors Bookstore
)

Spielberg’s family name means “play mountain.” Here he is working on one, planning shots for
Raiders of the Lost Ark
(1981) on a miniature mockup of a desert location. (
Paramount Pictures
)

Rehearsing the cliffhanger opening sequence of the first Indiana Jones movie,
Raiders of the Lost Ark
, Spielberg demonstrates to Harrison Ford why he gave up acting for directing. (
Paramount Pictures
)