📍Arcadia, Phoenix, Arizona, USA
1957 – 1964“Steven Spielberg was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, in December 1946, and in 1957, when he was ten, his family moved to Phoenix, Arizona, settling in a house on North 49th Street in Arcadia, a neighbourhood of citrus groves, ranch houses and views of Camelback Mountain. His father, Arnold, was an electrical engineer working on early computers, and his mother, Leah, a concert pianist. With his three younger sisters, Anne, Sue and Nancy, he grew up in a noisy, creative household, though his parents' marriage was strained. His father had an 8mm film camera to record family trips, and Steven took it over, filming everything. In 1958, as a Boy Scout, he made a nine-minute western, The Last Gunfight, to earn his photography merit badge, and the audience's reaction thrilled him. He was soon making films with friends and sisters as cast, using the desert and the neighbourhood as locations. At thirteen he won a statewide competition with a war film, Escape to Nowhere, and at Arcadia High School he wrote and directed his first feature-length film, a science-fiction epic called Firelight, which premiered at a Phoenix cinema in 1964. That year the family moved to California, and his parents later divorced. He studied film at California State University, Long Beach, and became one of the most successful directors in history, with Jaws, E.T., Raiders of the Lost Ark, Jurassic Park and Schindler's List. In 2022 he told the story of his Arizona childhood, his parents and his first films in The Fabelmans.”
🗺️ Approximate location today
🛰️ Satellite view · © Google