Even as a toddler he had not been able to resist spectacle.
At three years old he staged a miniature train crash using his Lionel set, simply to see the mess happen over and over.
Moreover, he has always been captivated by World War II, yet he eventually grew detached of his Jewish faith.
Growing up, he could never imagine that he would end up being the most financially successful celebrity on Earth, earnings more than such household names as Michael Jordan, Oprah Winfrey and even George Lucas.
And still that is what did happen.
Who then is this legendary celebrity?
Was not able to accept his own heritage
This icon was born on December 18, 1946 in Cincinnati, Ohio in a family of Orthodox Jew roots. His grandpa had previously travelled to the United States all the way back in Ukraine, avoiding the previous disturbances, but never having to hurriedly escape the atrocities of the Holocaust. Nevertheless, the fact of growing up in a post-Holocaust world left a non-erasable impression on him.
It is not something I like to boast about, but God forgive me, at seven, eight, nine years old I was ashamed of the fact that we were Orthodox Jews. I felt ashamed of the external view of Judaism practices of my parents. Admittedly, he had never felt ashamed to be a Jew but felt uncomfortable occasionally.
Years would pass before he could accept the culture and religion that he was born in.
His father was an early computer pioneer, electrical engineer. His mother was a concert pianist, who loved dramatic effects, and owned a kosher dairy restaurant. But the consistency of the home life was not to be continued – his parents divorced shortly after he turned mid-teen.
A sorrowful experience
That division would plague him. It was after they parted that he once needed a special friend. And I had to use my imagination to get me where it felt good-where it helped me forget the pain.” Imagination became then his resort, and later his profession. He confessed later that, when dwelling upon that sorrowful episode of his life, he pictured to himself a supernatural friend, an alien, as an ideal representation of loneliness, grief and recovery.
His mother still resided in Saratoga with his three sisters and he went to live with his father in Los Angeles. Despite the actual version of events, he had blamed his father in the divorce for many years, mainly not knowing that it was his mother who had been cheating.
Those feelings bled into his early creative output – where fatherless sons, fragmented families and children lost and seeking a sense of belonging became common themes.
He was a teen when he became fascinated by World War II not because of its politics or its devastation, but because of the unrefined tales of heroism and survival. He would excavate library basements seeking out old war films and then construct whole personalities and narratives that might have just as well been on those battle grounds. It was not just fascination, it was how he made sense of heroism, loss and the world around him.
In the black-and-white picture below, one may not recognize who this giant would turn out to be in future -but one can easily imagine the world he was growing up in and the surrounding that helped defined him.
Looking at the photo, not many would identify the boy on the photo. But his work is well known in the world.
Home videos to Hollywood titan
Ok, so now if you have not guessed it yet it is time to tell who is the speaker.
That’s Steven Spielberg alright — the guy who created some of the largest movies of all time. According to Forbes, Spielberg is now worth an estimated $5.3 billion, which makes him the richest celebrity in the planet today.
Spielberg started early in life. He fell in love with the process of telling stories and cinema, and as a teenager, he began to create amateur films. He wrote, directed and produced his first film, Firelight, at the age of 17, on a budget of only 500 dollars. It opened for a single night -making a profit of 1 dollar.
That modest start was the start to a sensational career, though.
By 1969, Spielberg would be the youngest director to make a long-term contract with a major Hollywood studio due to his 22-minute short Amblin, which impressed the audiences during the Atlanta Film festival.
And then the hits kept on arriving: Jaws, E.T., Indiana Jones, Jurassic Park -the list is endless.
His movies have earned more than 10 billion dollars in box office collections and Spielberg has turned into a pillar of the film history.
Fortunate inheritance
Spielberg does not only produce films, he creates entertainment dynasties. Reports show that he makes 2 percent of all ticket sales at Universal Studios theme parks, a transaction that keeps getting more and more valuable with new expansions such as the much-anticipated Epic Universe park.
AlthoughJurassic Park is his largest box office draw to date, taking in $1.058 billion at the ticket window, other monster hits, such as E.T. ($797.3 million) and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull ($786.6 million) are close behind.
Interestingly, among his most critically-acclaimed films, such as Schindler List, Raiders of the Lost Ark and Catch Me If You Can, failed to make it into his top 10 highest-grossing films.
Still record breaking
In 1994, Spielberg got into the Forbes list of the wealthiest Americans – and never left. He still holds — and creates new—box office records with every new project, proving that the person behind the camera is the one holding the true power.
The life of Spielberg, having started as a young boy with a camera and ending in a billionaire director, is a true demonstration of the fact that passion, persistence, and imagination can really make wonders.