Quentin Tarantino is an American director and actor whose films have been critically and commercially celebrated, with some of the film industry`s most iconic films such as Pulp Fiction (1994), Reservoir Dog (1992), Django Unchained (2012), and Kill Bill: Vol 1 and Vol 2 (2003 and 2004) credited to him. He has received numerous awards, including Academy Awards, Golden Globe Awards, BAFTA Awards, a Palme d`Or, the highest honour at the Cannes Film Festival. TIME magazine named him as one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World in 2005, calling him "the single most influential director of his generation". In December 2015, Tarantino received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his numerous contributions to the film industry.
Early Life
Tarantino was born in Knoxville, Tennessee on March 27, 1963, to Tony Tarantino and Connie McHugh. His mother married his father while visiting Los Angeles, but the marriage ended soon after and she moved back to her parents` home in Knoxville. She completed her nursing studies in 1966 when Tarantino was only three years old, and they moved back to Los Angeles, where he was brought up.
Tarantino`s mother soon married Curtis Zastoupil, a musician and they relocated to Torrance, in Los Angeles County`s South Bay area. Curtis Zastoupil was a film enthusiast as well, and took Tarantino to multiple film screenings, thus encouraging his passion for films. Tarantino`s mother even let him to watch movies that were not age appropriate. His mother divorced Zastoupil in 1973, and subsequently was misdiagnosed with Hodgkin`s lymphoma. Tarantino moved back to his grandparents` home Knoxville where he lived for about six months to a year, before going back to California.
His mother remarried and her spouse also encouraged Tarantino`s love for cinema and took him to watch films. At age 14, Tarantino wrote a screenplay called Captain Peachfuzz and the Anchovy Bandit, which was about a pizza thief, based on the 1977 action-romance film- Smokey and the Bandit made by Hal Needham. Right after he turned 15, Tarantino`s mother grounded him on discovering that he had shoplifted Elmore Leonard`s novel The Switch from a store. He was only allowed out to attend the Torrance Community Theatre, where he took part in plays such as Romeo and Juliet and Two Plus Two Makes Sex.
At age 15/16, Tarantino dropped out of school and acquired a job as an usher in a porn theatre by lying about his age. He later enrolled himself in the James Best Theatre Company for acting classes and cast a lot of the people he met here in his future works. Tarantino was then a part of a group of Elvis impersonators in "Sophia`s Wedding: Part 1", for an episode in the fourth season of The Golden Girls in the 1980s. He then worked in the aerospace industry as a recruiter, and he worked in a video store named `Video Archives` in Manhattan Beach, California for 5 years.
Personal Life
It was reported in 2015 that Tarantino was in a relationship with costume designer Courtney Hoffman. In the past, he has been linked with Mira Sorvino, Kathy Griffin, director Sofia Coppola, comedian Margaret Cho and writer Lianne MacDougall. In 2016, he began dating Daniella Pick, an Israeli model and singer.
Tarantino claims that he wishes to retire from filmmaking at age 60 in order to devote his time on writing novels and film literature. Tarantino has a tentative plan to retire after making his tenth movie and has said: "If I get to the 10th, do a good job and don`t screw it up, well that sounds like a good way to end the old career."
It was announced in 2010 that Tarantino had bought the New Beverly Cinema in order to keep showing films shot on 35 mm.
Movie Career
In the early 90s, Tarantino acquired his first paid assignment from Robert Kurtzman, who hired him to write the script of From Dusk Till Dawn.
Tarantino wrote, directed and acted in his 1992 drama crime thriller Reservoir Dogs. The film was screened at the Sundance Film Festival and became a rapid success, receiving a great response from critics. Tarantino completed the script in three-and-a-half weeks and Lawrence Bender sent it to director Monte Hellman. Hellman secured funding from Richard Gladstein for the film at Live Entertainment (currently Lionsgate). On reading the script, Harvey Keitel took up the role of co-producer by also contributing to the funding and playing a major part in the movie. The following year, 1993, saw the release of Tarantino`s greatly successful American crime romance film, True Romance starring Christian Slater, which, in 2008, was ranked by Empire as the 157th greatest film of all time.
After the huge success of Reservoir Dogs, Tarantino was offered a number of projects, including Men in Black, which he turned down and instead retired to Amsterdam to focus on his next project, Pulp Fiction. Tarantino directed, wrote as well as acted in his 1994 neo-noir black comedy crime film Pulp Fiction, maintaining the aestheticism of violence and a non-linear storyline. For this, he and Roger Avary won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. He was also nominated for Best Director. The film attained five more nominations, including that of Best Picture. Tarantino received the Palme d`Or as well for Pulp Fiction at the 1994 Cannes Film Festival. The film garnered massive critical acclaim and grossed over $200 million at the box office.
Tarantino then directed the fourth section of the anthology film Four Rooms (1995), which received largely negative reviews. He then wrote and appeared in Robert Rodriguez`s 1996 American crime action horror black comedy film From Dusk till Dawn, starring George Clooney. The film was met with ordinary reviews from the critics, soon after, however, obtained a cult status. His 1997 third feature film, Jackie Brown was an adaptation of Elmore Leonard`s novel Rum Punch, in honour of black-exploitation films. It was met with critical acclaim and stated as actors Pam Grier`s and Robert Forester`s "comeback".
His next releases were the hugely successful 2003 and 2004 American two-part martial arts film series, Kill Bill, based on stylized "revenge." The films were made in the cinematic styles of Wuxia- Chinese martial arts and Jidaigeki- a Japanese period cinema and Italian horror. Kill Bill: Volume 1 became Tarantino`s highest-grossing film up to that point, earning over $180 million at the box office. Tarantino played the role of McKenas Cole, a villain in the ABC television series alia from 2002-2004. Tarantino directed and co-wrote an episode named "Grave Danger", in May 2005, for the finale of season 5 of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. For this, he was nominated at the 57th Primetime Emmy Awards for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series.
Tarantino`s next project was the co-directed 2007 horror film double feature Grindhouse. Despite sales being low, it garnered a positive response from critics. Tarantino`s next project was the 2009 American-German war film, Inglourious Basterds. The film released on August 21, 2009 to greatly positive reviews and soon became the No.1 film at the box office worldwide. It became Tarantino`s highest-grossing film until it was surpassed by his own 2012 western film Django Unchained, The film grossed over $425 million worldwide, against its $100 million budget, making it Tarantino`s highest-grossing film.bThe director even won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for the movie. Tarantino stuck to the western genre with the 2015 revisionist western mystery film The Hateful Eight. After its release, it received positive reviews, with actress Jennifer Leigh receiving much praise.
As A Producer
Quentin Tarantino has also helped produce several films, especially foreign films, to help them get noticed in Hollywood. In the year 2001, he produced the Hong Kong martial arts film Iron Monkey. In 2010, Empire magazine ranked it at 99 on their list of "The 100 Best Films of World Cinema". A few years later, he produced Hero (2004), a Chinese martial arts film which made over 50 million USD at the box office. Over the next few years he was involved with movies like the Thai martial arts film The Protector (2006), the Eli Roth-directed American horror film Hostel Part II (2007), and Larry Bishop`s American action film Hell Ride (2008).