Was given an inexpensive Kodak movie camera when he was 12, which spurred his imagination; liked to create and film train wrecks on his toy railroad. Directed a high-school production of Peter Pan . As an adult, he directed the lavish 1991 Peter Pan update, Hook, starring Robin Williams, Dustin Hoffman and Julia Roberts. Wanted John Wayne to play Gen. Stilwell in 1941 (1979), but the Duke lost interest when he learned the film's story (about the hysteria that followed Pearl Harbor) included… Show more two American planes being shot down. (The part eventually went to Robert Stack.) Created the story for Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) with producer George Lucas and screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan over five days. His own boyhood fears, including a tree outside his window, formed the basis of Poltergeist (1982), which he wrote and produced. His three favorites of his own films are E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (1982), Schindler's List (1993) and Saving Private Ryan (1998). Inspired by the experience of directing Schindler's List (1993), he created the Shoah Foundation to preserve an archive of eyewitness and survivor accounts of the Holocaust. Co-founded DreamWorks in 1994. In 2000, he received the Directors Guild of America's Lifetime Achievement Award. Nineteen years after directing Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), he helmed the fourth installment of the series, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008). Collaborated with Tom Hanks and produced HBO's award-winning WWII miniseries Band of Brothers (2001) and The Pacific (2010). ~ Rovi

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