Edward Zwick

Born: 8 October 1952
Where: Chicago, Illinois

The director, writer and producer is probably best known for the Oscar-winning movies Glory and Legends of the Fall.

He also picked up an Academy Award as producer for Shakespeare in Love and was also nominated for Traffic.

Zwick began directing and acting in high school, leading to an apprenticeship at the Academy Festival in Lake Forest, Illinois.

He worked as editor and feature writer for The New Republic and Rolling Stone magazines while in college before being awarded a Rockefeller Fellowship to study theatre abroad.

In 1976 his short film Timothy and the Angel, made while a student at the American Film Institute, won first place at the student film competition at the Chicago Film Festival.

It caught the attention of the producers of the TV drama series Family, who then hired him as a story editor.

Over the next four years, Zwick got his first taste of mainstream success as a writer, director and producer and made his feature directorial debut, About Last Night.

His second feature, Glory, firmly established his reputation as a director of scope and ambition, and marked his first collaboration with Denzel Washington.

Zwick's female buddy-road movie Leaving Normal, was not a huge hit, after which he directed and made his feature producing debut with Legends of the Fall, which he also directed.

His next two features were contemporary dramas, both starring Denzel Washington; Courage Under Fire, and The Siege, about a terrorist campaign in NYC and the resultant martial law.

Zwick was producer on the period romance Shakespeare in Love before serving as one of the producers of Traffic, which earned a Best Picture Oscar nomination.

He was producer on the sentimental drama I Am Sam and returned to directing with The Last Samurai, starring Tom Cruise and Ken Watanabe.