Quentin Jerome Tarantino (born March 27, 1963) is an American
film director,
screenwriter,
producer,
cinematographer and
actor. In the early 1990s he was an
independent filmmaker whose films used
nonlinear storylines and
aestheticization of violence. His films include
Reservoir Dogs (1992),
Pulp Fiction (1994),
Jackie Brown (1997),
Kill Bill (Vol. 1, 2003; Vol. 2, 2004),
Death Proof (2007) and
Inglourious Basterds (2009). His films have earned him
Academy,
Golden Globe,
BAFTA and
Palme d'Or Awards and he has been nominated for
Emmy and
Grammy Awards. In 2007,
Total Film named him the 12th greatest director of all-time.
Early life
Tarantino was born in
Knoxville, Tennessee, the son of Connie McHugh Zastoupil, a health care executive and nurse, and
Tony Tarantino, an actor and amateur
musician born in
Queens, New York.
Tarantino's father is
Italian American and his mother is of
Irish and
Cherokee Native American ancestry.
He attended
Narbonne High School in
Harbor City, California for his
freshman year before dropping out of school at age 15. Quentin and his childhood friend, Adam Olis, began to make movies in his backyard using cheap animations. He attended acting school at the
James Best Theatre Company in
Toluca Lake. At age 22, he held employment at the
Video Archives, a now defunct video rental store in
Manhattan Beach where he and fellow movie buffs like
Roger Avary spent all day discussing and recommending films to customers.
Film career
After Tarantino met
Lawrence Bender at a Hollywood party, Bender encouraged Tarantino to write a screenplay. He directed and co-wrote a movie called "My Best Friend's Birthday" in 1987. The final reel of the film was almost fully destroyed in a lab fire that broke out during editing but its screenplay would go on to be the basis for
True Romance.
[www.imdb.com/title/tt0359715/trivia] In January 1992, Tarantino's
Reservoir Dogs hit the Sundance Film festival and was an immediate hit. The film garnered critical acclaim.
Reservoir Dogs was a dialogue-driven
heist movie that set the tone for his later films. Tarantino wrote the script in three and a half weeks and Bender forwarded it to director
Monte Hellman. Hellman helped Tarantino to secure funding from
Richard Gladstein at Live Entertainment (which later became
Artisan).
Harvey Keitel read the script and also contributed to funding, took a co-producer role, and a part in the movie.
[Keitel heard of the script through his wife, who attended a class with Lawrence Bender (see Reservoir Dogs special edition DVD commentary).]
