In 1971, with great kindness, Jack Arnold, director of The Incredible Shrinking Man and It Came from Outer Space, showed me, a young critic on a first visit to Hollywood, around Universal Studios, bought me lunch in the commissary and introduced me to the company chairman. Lew Wasserman. Distantly, this book springs from that first encounter.
Somewhere in the black tower that marks out Universal’s empire, Steven Spielberg was gearing up to make his professional debut in movies. He and I must have gone to some of the same previews at Universal during the weeks I spent in Hollywood on that trip. We definitely knew some of the same people, in particular Carey Loftin, the veteran stunt man who nearly killed himself on the climactic scene of Spielberg’s first theatrical success, Duel.
Like most critics, I’ve watched, listened to and briefly met Spielberg as he moved around the world over the last twenty years, promoting his movies. He declined, however, to be interviewed for this book. ‘He has never authorised a book about himself or his career,’ his colleague Marvin Levy told me when I approached Amblin for assistance – admittedly with little expectation of success. ‘It is possible one day he will do one himself.’
Fortunately Spielberg is one of the most widely interviewed of all contemporary artists. There is almost no corner of his life, professional or private, which he has not illuminated over the years. He is, in fact, almost obsessive about revealing himself to the public. His has been a career lived in the most unsparing of lights, that of the cinema screen. I’ve drawn on scores of these interviews, many of them unpublished, for this book. They have been extensively augmented by conversations with people who know or who have worked with Spielberg. Some of these cannot be named, since Amblin Entertainment insists on employees signing a lifetime confidentiality agreement. I’m grateful to those who felt they could speak to me, while respecting their wish to remain off the record.
Among those prepared to be quoted, I’m particularly grateful to J. G. Ballard, who spoke at length about his experiences on Empire of the Sun, Joe Dante about the making of The Twilight Zone and Gremlins, and his long experience of working with Spielberg, and Mick Garris about the production of Amazing Stories. Paul Freeman, Julian Glover, Kevork Malikyan, David Yip, Emily Richard and Bill Hootkins provided graphic and vivid memories of acting for Spielberg in Raiders of the Lost Ark, Empire of the Sun and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. In the course of an extraordinary morning, Gordon Stainforth brought an unaccustomed drama to the staid premises of the Royal Geographical Society with his description of Spielberg’s encounter with snakes and Stanley Kubrick on Raiders. Sir David Puttnam illuminated Spielberg’s corporate significance, while Tom Stoppard battled the ’flu to tell me about their association. And I’m more than usually grateful to Jackie and Patrick Morreau, this time for introducing me to Jerry Goldsmith, not only for his memories of long days and white nights with Spielberg, but the unforgettable experience of hearing him conduct Alex North’s Streetcar Named Desire music on a wet Soho Sunday.
Adrian Turner reminisced about presenting Spielberg at the National Film Theatre and kindly supplied a tape of his lecture there. Professor John Lincoln was cordial in recalling details of California State University, Long Beach, and Michael Lucas of the St James’s Club in enlightening me about Spielberg’s domestic arrangements. Pat McGilligan recalled his meetings with Spielberg on the set of Jaws and 1941, only one of many kindnesses.
Bill Warren interviewed a number of people in Los Angeles on my behalf. I’ve consulted, and in some cases quoted from, my own interviews with Terry Hayes and Byron Kennedy, Carey Loftin, Denholm Elliot, Jack Arnold, Ray Bradbury, Forrest J. Ackerman, Robert Zemeckis, Hal Needham, François Truffaut, Richard Franklin and Raymond Burr, none of whom knew they would one day be contributing to this book.
Alex McGregor in Los Angeles and Mary Troath in London worked tirelessly to sift the mountain of clippings about Spielberg and his films. In Paris, the staff of the American Library and of the Bibliothèque Andre Malraux were extremely helpful. Maggie Brammall and John Brosnan also provided background material. In Sydney, Simon Taaffe searched out additional research documents, and in Melbourne Lucy Sussex sieved the Internet for the tracks of Thomas Keneally. Louise Swan and Mark Burman performed a similiar service for the BBC Archives, and David Thompson of Omnibus was kind enough to supply me with some of the rarest filmed interviews of Spielberg, John Milius and others. At the Museum of Modem Art in New York, Charles Silver and Ron Magliozzi were, as usual, courteous and helpful. Kevin Jackson, Richard Johnson and Rebecca Levin also provided help and encouragement.
Finally, to Pat McGilligan, Bill Warren and John Brosnan, for their incisive, if often abrasive comments on the manuscript, the most heartfelt of thanks.
John Baxter
Paris, 1996