Quentin Tarantino
Quentin Tarantino was born in 1963 in Knoxville, Tennessee, the son of a 16 year old nursing
student Connie and a 21 year old law student and aspiring actor Tony. He was named after Burt
Reynolds' character, Quint in 'Gunsmoke'. When Quentin was 2, they moved to South Los
Angeles, which is where Quentin grew up. His mother took him to the cinema from an early age,
he saw 'Carnal Knowledge' at the age of 8 and Deliverance' at the age of 9. From this early
introduction Tarantino fell in love with the cinema and went at every opportunity.
At the age of 22, he got a job in Video Archives, a video store in Manhattan Beach, California
where he and Rogerx Avery spent all day watching and discussing and recommending videos. He
made his first (unfinished) film in 1986, 'My Best Friend's Birthday' and followed this up by
writing his first script, 'True Romance' a year later. During this period, he was attending acting
classes and put together a CV of his (non-existent) acting experience which included a role in Jean
Luc Goddard's 'King Lear' because nobody in Hollywood would have heard of the film or director
and 'Dawn of the Dead' by George Romero because he resembled a biker in one of the scenes. His
role in 'King Lear' is actually listed in Leonard Maltin's video guide.
By 1988, Tarantino had written his second script, 'Natural Born Killers' and in 1990 he sold the
script for 'True Romance' for $50,000. He decided to use this money to make his third script,
'Reservoir Dogs' on 16mm and in black and white with his friends in the leading roles. It was
around this point that Tarantino left the video store to do rewrites for CineTel, a small Hollywood
production company - this is where he met Lawrence Bender and struck lucky; Bender was
attending acting classes given by a friend of Harvey Keitel's wife. Keitel saw the script and was
impressed enough to raise some more finance, act in the film and help Tarantino cast the main
roles. At this point, producers Monte Hellman and Richard Gladstein also joined the project.
In 1991, Tarantino filmed some scenes at Sundance with him playing the role of Mr White and
Steve Buscemi playing Mr Pink. These scenes were shown to various film people to comment on
and the group containing Terry Gilliam were particularly impressed.
'Reservoir Dogs' finally premiered at Sundance '92 before appearing at various film festivals
around the World. Miramax picked the film up for distribution after Sundance and it was released
in the US later in 1992 and in the UK on January 8 1993. Tarantino travelled around the various
festivals in 1992 promoting his film and writing his next script, 'Pulp Fiction' which went on to
win the Palme D'Or at Cannes in 1994. It finally opened amidst incredible hype and critical
acclaim on October 14 in the US and October 21 in the UK.
'Pulp Fiction' went on to become one of the most highly acclaimed movies of 1994, grossing over
100 million dollars worldwide and picking up several Academy Award nominations for Best
Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor and Actress, and winning an Oscar for
Best Original Screenplay
Riding on the success of Pulp Fiction, Tarantino has gone on to be a major Hollywood player,
Producing, Distributing films through Miramax with an arm of the company called 'Rolling
Thunder', Co-Directing and Co-Writing 'Four Rooms', an anthology-type feature film, Directing
an episode of 'ER', a popular TV show, and making many appearance in movies and TV.
His latest film, 'Jackie Brown', has opened to great success, making more cash in the opening
weekend that it cost to make the film & showing up on numerous critics top ten lists. Also, it's
been nominated for 2 Golden Globe Awards for Best Actress (Pam Grier) Best Actor (Samuel L.
Jackson). Tarantino's new film "Jackie Brown" is by some a disappointment compared to his
earlier films.
This is maybe because it isn't so violent as the earlier films. "Jackie Brown" is based upon Elmor
Leonard's novel Rum Punch.
Also in 1997, Tarantino appeared in Full Tilt Boogie, a documentary about the making of From
Dusk Til Dawn. His film work the following year was essentially confined to a role in Julia
Sweeney's God Said, Ha!, and in 1999, he was back behind the camera as the producer for From
Dusk Til Dawn 2: Texas Blood Money
Tarantino is now working on a yet to be titled project and has recently appeared along with Adam
Sandler in the comedy movie, Little Nicky, along with Adam Sandler.
Aco
. Quentin Tarantino
Quentin Tarantino was born in 1963 in Knoxville, Tennessee, the son of. character, Quint in 'Gunsmoke'. When Quentin was 2, they moved to South Los
Angeles, which is where Quentin grew up. His mother took him to the