Birth
Mr. Spielberg was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S.A., on December 18th, 1947. His father, Arnold Spielberg, was an electrical engineer. He was a member of the team responsible for the first North-American computers.
Mr. Spielberg�s mother was called Leah Adler, and according to Mr.Spielberg �she seemed to have the energy of at least one hundred mothers of her age�.
Childhood
In a time period of only thirteen years, Mr. Spielberg and his three younger sisters had to live in four different cities, due to their father�s job. They went from Cincinnati (Ohio) to Haddonfield (New Jersey) to Scottsdale (Arizona) to Saratoga (a suburb of San Jos�, California). �I consider Scottsdale my real home. �Home� is a place where you have your best friends, your first car, and where you give your first kiss�.
Mr. Spielberg recalls: �The first movie my father took me to was Cecil B. DeMille�s �The Greatest Show on Earth�. I thought I was at the circus, and I was very disappointed to find out there were no lions, no smells, no three-dimensional world...just a flat screen and chairs turned toward it.�
TV
When he was four or five, a documentary on snakes terrified him. �It was the beginning of the end of TV for me.� - Mr. Spielberg says - �My father used to set-up electronic booby-traps that would tell him if I had watched TV or not. When my baby-sitters fell asleep I sneaked downstairs and watched �Science Fiction Theater�. �Poltergeist� is my personal revenge against television.�
Hollywood
After going on a Universal studio tour during his college years, Spielberg ditched the tour and found an empty working office. He would return there for many months unnoticed and unsuspected where he would negotiate with filmmakers and TV producers. This is how he learned to negotiate and deal in Hollywood.
His Gift
Mr. Spielberg�s career began when he was twelve years old. He liked to stage train disasters, using his toy trains. One day, using the camera his father had received for Father�s Day, little Steven filmed a huge disaster, with trains coming from different directions and with the terrified plastic action figures. �I knew I wanted to be a director� he says.
Mr. Spielberg doesn�t have fond memories of school. He says: �How could the subjects taught in school help me to produce my 8mm sagas ? Besides, I was always in trouble with the guys in the football team. I managed to stop that by asking one of them to star in my war movie against the nazis, when I was thirteen. He eventually became my best friend. On Mondays I pretended I was sick, so I could edit the movies I had shot during the week-end. My favorite technique was putting the thermometer next to a light bulb, just like Elliot does in E.T.�
In the summer of 1965, Spielberg stayed at his cousin�s house at Canoga Park, close to Universal Studios. After showing some of his 8mm work to a few executives, he was advised to prepare something in 16 or 35mm. At the age of twenty he made �Amblin�, which opened the studio�s doors to him. He directed episodes for the TV series �Columbo� and �Night Gallery�.
Idols
The movie that made the strongest impression on Mr. Spielberg was David Lean�s Lawrence of Arabia. He remembers feeling �as if I was reading a romance�.
Another director he admires is Fran?ois Truffaut. One week after a trip to Paris, where he tried to talk the French director into Close Encounters of the Third Kind and gave him a copy of the screenplay, he received a telegram signed by Truffaut: �When do we start ?�
Success and Failure
Mr. Spielberg is always surprised by the effect caused by his movies. He has some good advice for other movie-makers: �Instead of staying home and waiting for the results of your movie, you�d better be shooting another one. If you receive good news, you can celebrate with the crew. If the news are not so good, you can throw yourself into the new work.�
However, that�s not what his friend George Lucas did after shooting Star Wars. Lucas went to Hawaii, and invited Spielberg to come along. There, they decided to create a new hero. His name: Indiana Jones.
How about getting off of these antibiotics
How about stopping eating when I�m filled up
How about them transparent dangling carrots
How about that ever elusive kudo
Thank you India
Thank you terror
Thank you disillusionment
Thank you frailty
Thank you consequence
Thank you thank you silence
How about me not blaming you for everything
How about me enjoying the moment for once
How about how good it feels to finally forgive you
How about grieving it all one at a time
Thank you India
Thank you terror
Thank you disillusionment
Thank you frailty
Thank you consequence
Thank you thank you silence
The moment I let go of it
Was the moment I got more than I could handle
The moment I jumped off of it
Was the moment I touched down
How about no longer being masochistic
How about remembering your divinity
How about unabashedly bawling your eyes out
How about not equating death with stopping
Thank you India
Thank you providence
Thank you disillusionment
Thank you nothingness
Thank you clarity
Thank you thank you silence
Yeah yeah
14/12/1901 In London started the first Ping-Pong tournament.
14/12/1911 Norwegian polar researchers Ronald Amundsen was the first man to reach South Pole of the Earth.
14/12/1918 On general election, holding in Great Britain, for the first time women older then 30 years old have taken part in voting. For the men the age qualification was reduced to 21 years. Due to the new selective law the number of the citizens possessing the right of a vote, has grown three times. On irony of destiny these elections were marked by the least in XX century percent of the voters who have participated.
14/12/1958 Soviet expedition for the first time has reached a pole of inaccessibility in Antarctic Continent (the most far point from coast of continent).
15/12/1970 for the first time space vehicle sent from the Earth has made landing on other planet, � The surface of Venus was reached by the Soviet interplanetary station �Venus 7 �.
15/12/1989 The beginning of revolution in Romania. The population of city Timishoara has tried to prevent violent deportation of the priest Laslo Tekesh, the representative of the Hungarian community. Police and army have dispersed demonstrators by waterthrowers. The next day people again collected on the squares of Timishoara and Arada with the requirement of a resignation of Chaushesku. The army has opened fire, has let tanks and armored machines on unarmed people. As a result more than 5000 men became victims of that bloody massacre. The movement of the protest went into capital too, soon having distributed throughout all country. Within one week the dictatorship of Chaushesku was removed and he with his wife were arrested and sentenced to death and immediately executed. The fall of communist regime in Romania has appeared as the most bloody by its consequences.
16/12/1906 - was born Leonid Brezhnev (Russian leader of the Communist Party)
16/12/1912 - The first postage stamp to depict an airplane was issued. It was a 20-cent parcel post stamp.
16/12/1957 Soviet expedition for the first time has reached southern geomagnetic pole of the Earth.
16/12/1971 - Don McLean�s eight-minute-plus version of �American Pie� was released and became one of the longest songs with some of the most confusing lyrics to ever hit the pop charts.
17/12/1903 Wilbur and Orville Wright gave humankind wings with the first successful manned, powered-airplane flight in the Kill Devil Hills near Kitty Hawk, NC.
17/12/1928 was born Leonid Bronevoy, actor.
18/12/1890 was born Edvin Armstrong, american radioinventor who have developed by 1933 system of an announcement in a FM-range. Having become a millionaire already in the 20-th years, he put all means in development of radio and in 1939 has constructed the first FM-radio station. But as the new system required radical change of transmitting and accepting devices, the radioindustry has not shown interest to his invention. By spending all means and health for progress of the invention, in 1954 Armstrong has finished life by suicide.
18/12/1917 has started the first championship of National Hockey League.
18/12/1921 was born Yuriy Nikulin, russian clown and actor.
18/12/1940 ������ has signed the �Barbarous� plan.
18/12/1947 - was born Stephen Spielberg (Academy Award-winning director: Schindler�s List [1993]; E.T., Indiana Jones, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Jurassic Park, etc.).
18/12/1972 the crew of the American space ship �Appollo-17� has come back to the Earth. The astronauts Sernan and Schmidt have spent a record time on a surface of the Moon � 74 hours 59 minutes. This flight has finished the American lunar program.
18/12/1976 In Zurich for the first time in a history was held a political exchange between USSR and West: dissident Vladimir Bukovskiy was exchanged on general secretary of communist party Luis Corvalan.
19/12/1915 - was born Edith Piaf (Gassion) (French cabaret singer, actress)
20/12/1963 - The Berlin Wall was opened for the first time. It remained open for the holiday season, but closed again on January 6, 1964. 4,000 people crossed over to visit relatives during this period.
20/12/1980 - TV experimented this day, as NBC covered the meaningless NFL game between the New York Jets (4-11) and the Miami Dolphins (8-7). No announcers were in the booth. The only sounds heard were field noise and spectators as the pictures tried to convey the emotion of the game. Headlines the next day read, �Jets Silence Dolphins 24-17.�
The Ark Gallery
Galym Madanov�s personal exhibition �Sky Tracks� to last till December 26.
The Gallery is open every day but Sunday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.. On Saturday � from 10.30 a.m. to 6 p.m. Attendance is free.
The Ular Gallery
Marat Bekeev�s personal exhibition (painting) in the big hall.
Artist�s Bazargaliev�s exhibition in the small hall.
Saule Suleimenova�s personal exhibition (paining, graphics) in the small hall.
The Gallery is open every day but Sunday from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.
The Tengri Umay Gallery
The Petersburg painter N. Guzeev�s personal exhibition �Album-autograph� in the small hall (Expositions vary).
December 14 � Exhibition of young artists, AGU graduates �12+1� (painting, graphics)
The Gallery is open every day but Sunday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
The Bridge Gallery
The Christmas exhibition-fair presents works by the Bridge Association members (painting, sculpture, graphics).
The Orhon Modern Art Gallery
Exhibition by remarkable modern artists of Kazakhstan (painting, graphics) and a big posters collection (copies) by famous European artists.
The Central Exhibition Hall
The Christmas charitable exhibition-fair of works by folk artists (painting, sculpture, graphics).
The exhibition hall is open every day but Sunday from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.
The Central Kazakhstani Museum
Exhibition from Germany
The Museum is open every day but Tuesday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Museum after Kasteev
�Mosaic� (monumental painting)
The exhibition devoted to the 5th anniversary of the Arts Academy
Medeo Photoclub
The N.N.N. ( Unknown Nursultan Nazarbaev)Exhibition
The State Theatre after Lermontov
December 17 � Edwardo de Filippo �I won�t pay�, a 3-acts naive comedy
December 18 � M. Bulgakov �The hypocrites� servitude�, a 4-acts drama
Day plays begin at 11 a.m., evening plays � at 6 p.m.
The Russian TyuZ new stage
December 18 � T. Williams �Glass Zoo�, a 2-acts drama of reminiscences at 5 p.m.
The Kazakh TyuZ main stage
December 17 � �Ali-Baba and 40 gangmen�, a 2-acts musicle at 11 a.m. and 1.30 p.m.
Opera and Ballet Theatre
December 18 � The Cristmas concert �Ave Maria� at the Kazakhconcert concert hall at 6 p.m.
The Republic Palace
The Choreographs� of Kazakhstan Union, KEGOC national company present: the world ballet super-star, prima-ballet-dancer of the Bolshoy Theatre of Russia and the American Ballet Thatre, the Triumph award laureate Nina Ananiashvili in ballets: Kuperen �Mannerism beauties� and �Dreams of Japan�. Beginning at 7 p.m.
The Kazakhconcert
Concert Hall
December 17 � The fortepiano music party. The concert is participated by laureate of the International Pianists Contest in the city of Tswikkau (the 1st award and gold winner) Temirzhan Erzhanov (Moscow). The programme includes Beethoven, Bach, Shuman and starts at 6 p.m.
The Ark Gallery: 164 Kabanbay-batyra str. (corner of Mechnikova str.), Tel.: 679086.
The Ular Gallery: 29 Kurmangazy str. Tel.: 614773.
The Tengri Umay Gallery: 43 Abay Avenue (corner of Abylay-khana Avenue, in the lobby of the Theatre after Lermontov. Tel.: 620309.
The Central Exhibition Hall: 137 Zheltoksan str. Tel.: 692090.
The Central State Museum of Kazakhstan: 44 Samal-1. Tel.: 645588.
The State Theater after Lermontov: 43 Abay Avenue. Tel.: 628273.
The New Scene of the Russian TyuZ: 103 Panfilova str. Tel.: 335766.
The Main Scene of the Kazakh TyuZ: 38Abylay-khana Avenue. Tel.: 323849.
The Almaty State Conservatory after Kurmangazy: 90 Abylay-khana Avenue (corner of Tole-bi str.). Tel.: 617972, 632682.