It doesn’t matter whether it’s a legal thriller, a brisk gangster comedy or rather shallow fare: Steven Soderbergh has it all.
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the essentials in brief
- Hollywood director Steven Soderbergh celebrates his 60th birthday on January 14th.
- Few filmmakers cover the same breadth as he does.
- He was a talented baseball player well into his teens.
Hardly anyone in Hollywood serves a similar range as director Steven Soderbergh. Now the all-rounder is celebrating his 60th birthday and should be happy that he didn’t aim for a sports career instead.
Turbulent childhood and decision for the film
Young Steven showed great talent for baseball, but his love for film was stronger: at the age of 13 he shot his first strips with a Super 8 camera. He was inspired by director icons such as Steven Spielberg (76) or George Lucas (78).
After school, Soderbergh first tried his hand as an editor, but was not happy with it. Instead, he set his first exclamation mark with the concert film “9012Live: The Solos” about the band Yes: The work was nominated for Best Long Music Video at the 1986 Grammy Awards.
With “Sex, Lies and Video” for the first Oscar nomination
Soderbergh directed, wrote and edited the drama “Sex, Lies and Video”. He achieved the next milestone: The film with James Spader (62) and Andie MacDowell (64) won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival. He was nominated for Best Original Screenplay at the 1990 Oscars. It is said that Soderbergh only needed eight days for the script.
His commercial breakthrough came in 1998 with “Out of Sight” with Hollywood superstar George Clooney (61), with whom he was also friends. The crook comedy grossed over $77 million (about €70 million) worldwide. Clooney and the filmmaker even started a production company together in 2000.
Soderbergh finally came to Oscar honors in 2001 with “Traffic – the power of the cartel”. Particularly noteworthy: The filmmaker was nominated twice for Best Director at the awards ceremony. He shot Erin Brockovich that same year.
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