|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
George Walton Lucas, Jr. (born May 14, 1944) is a four-time Academy Award nominated American film director, producer, and screenwriter famous for his epic Star Wars saga and Indiana Jones films - the latter a collaboration with his friend Steven Spielberg. He is one of American film industry's most financially successful independent directors and producers.
BiographyEarly life and education
As a teen, Lucas was in a serious car accident. During his recovery, Lucas reevaluated his life and decided to go to college. He enrolled at Modesto Junior College, where he earned an AA degree. Lucas then transferred to the USC School of Cinematic Arts. USC was one of the earliest universities to have a school devoted to motion picture film. During the years at USC, George Lucas shared a dorm room with Randal Kleiser. George Lucas made many short films at USC; the first was Freiheit that included Kleiser in the acting cast. Many of George Lucas's USC student projects had a technical and science fiction look. With them an early version of THX 1138 entitled Electronic Labyrinth THX 1138:4EB, which won first prize at the 1967-68 National Student Film Festival and later became his first full-length feature film. After graduating with a bachelor of fine arts in film in 1967, he tried joining the United States Air Force as an officer, but was turned down because of his numerous speeding tickets. He was later drafted by the Army, but tests showed he had diabetes, the disease that killed his paternal grandfather. Lucas was prescribed medication for the disease, but his symptoms are sufficiently mild that he does not require insulin and would not be considered diabetic under the disease's current classification.[1]
Professional lifeLucas co-founded the studio American Zoetrope with Coppola—whom he met during the internship at Warner Brothers—hoping to create a liberating environment for filmmakers to direct outside the perceived oppressive control of the Hollywood studio system. From the financial success of his films American Graffiti (1973) and Star Wars (1977), Lucas was able to set up his own studio, Lucasfilm, in Marin County in his native Northern California. Skywalker Sound and Industrial Light and Magic, the sound and visual effects subdivisions of Lucasfilm, respectively, have become among the most respected firms in their fields. Lucasfilm Games, later renamed to LucasArts, was for many years highly regarded in the gaming industry. Some consider Star Wars to be the first "high concept" film, although others feel the first was Steven Spielberg's Jaws, released two years prior. Lucas and Spielberg had been good friends for some time and eventually worked together on several films, notably the Indiana Jones trilogy, Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984), and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989). On a return on investment basis, Star Wars proved to be one of the most successful films of all time. During the filming of Star Wars, Lucas waived his up front fee as director and negotiated to own the licensing rights—rights which the studio thought were nearly worthless. This decision earned him hundreds of millions of dollars as he was able to directly profit from all the licensed games, toys and collectibles created for the franchise. In 2006 Forbes Magazine estimated Lucas' personal wealth at US$3.5 billion. In 2005 Forbes.com estimated the lifetime revenue generated by the Star Wars franchise at nearly $20 billion. On October 3, 1994, Lucas started to write the three Star Wars prequels, and on November 1 that year, he left the day-to-day operations of his filmmaking business and started a sabbatical to finish the prequels. He recently announced that he would produce a TV series about Star Wars which would take place between episodes III and IV. Awards, donations and other activitiesThe American Film Institute awarded Lucas its Life Achievement Award on June 9, 2005.[2] This was shortly after the release of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, to which he jokingly made reference in his acceptance speech, stating that, since he views the entire Star Wars series as one movie, he could actually receive the award now that he had finally "gone back and finished [the] movie." On June 5, 2005, Lucas was named 100th "Greatest American" by the Discovery Channel. Lucas was nominated for four Academy Awards: Best Directing and Writing for American Graffiti, and Best Directing and Writing for Star Wars. He also received the Academy's Irving G. Thalberg Award in 1991. He appeared at the 79th Academy Awards ceremony in 2007 with Steven Spielberg and Francis Ford Coppola to present the Best Director award to Martin Scorsese. In 2005, Lucas gave $1 Million USD to help build the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial on the National Mall in Washington D.C. to commemorate American civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. [1] On September 19, 2006, USC announced that George Lucas had donated $175 million to his alma mater to expand the film school. It is the largest single donation to USC[3]. On January 1, 2007 George Lucas served as the Grand Marshal for the 2007 Rose Parade, and made the coin toss at the 2007 Rose Bowl. The toss favored Lucas's alma mater. Personal LifeIn 1969, Lucas married film editor Marcia Lou Griffin, who went on to win an Oscar for her editing work on the original (Episode IV) Star Wars film. They adopted a daughter, Amanda, in 1981, and divorced in 1983. Lucas has since adopted two more children: Katie, born in 1988, and Jett, born in 1993. All three of his children have appeared in the prequels. Lucas had also been in a long relationship with country singer Linda Ronstadt. He has recently been observed at several events with Mellody Hobson, president of Ariel Capital Management, who accompanied him to the 79th Academy Awards ceremony in February 2007. Filmography
References
|
Sites |
Searched sites for "George Lucas" |
|
No sites found. |
Sorry, no matching site records were found. |
Want your site listed here?
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||
