Quentin Jerome Tarantino (born March 27, 1963) is an American
film director,
screenwriter,
producer and actor. He rose to fame in the early 1990s as 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) and
Death Proof (2007). His films have earned him
Academy,
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.
Tarantino is currently filming
Inglourious Basterds, a
World War II movie planned to be released at the
Cannes Film Festival in May 2009.
Biography
Early life
Tarantino was born in
Knoxville,
Tennessee, the son of Connie Zastoupil (
née McHugh), a health care executive and nurse, and
Tony Tarantino, an actor and amateur
musician born in
Queens, New York.
Tarantino's father is part
Italian American and his mother is
Irish American and has part
Cherokee Native American ancestry.
Dropping out of
Narbonne High School in
Harbor City, California at the age of 15, he went on to learn acting at the
James Best Theatre Company. This proved to be influential in his movie-making career. At the age of 22, he landed a job at the
Manhattan Beach Video Archives, a now defunct video rental store in Manhattan Beach, California where he and fellow movie buffs like
Roger Avary spent all day discussing and recommending films to customers such as actor
Danny Strong.
