Robert Rodriguez

Born: 20th June 1968
Where: San Antonio, Texas

The Texan director is probably best known for his highly successful Spy Kids series of movies featuring the crimebusting Cortez family.

However, he is also known for an industry row when he quit the American Guild of Editors for trying to prevent writer Frank Miller getting a co-directing credit on Sin City.

Rodriguez burst onto the indie scene in 1993 with what is touted as the cheapest studio film ever - the £4,500 Spanish-language El Mariachi.

Rodriguez began making Super 8 movies as a 13-year-old, using his large family - five sisters and four brothers - as subjects.

After being rejected by the University of Texas' film department, he made 30 short films, which won him several awards - and admission to film school.

There he made his first 16mm short, Bedhead, an eight-minute film about a little girl with telekinetic powers, which won awards at 14 festivals.

During his 1991 summer break from university, Rodriguez spent a month in a research hospital testing a new cholesterol drug.

He was paid £1,900 for his trouble and emerged with the script for El Mariachi.

Borrowing another £2,500 from a friend, he began his 14-day shoot in the Mexican border town - to which he later returned to film sequel Desperado, with Antonio Banderas in his first Hollywood starring role.

After filming The Faculty, Robert took a break, then returned to movies three years later to direct Spy Kids, starring Banderas.

Banderas reprised the role in 2002's Spy Kids 2 before working again with Robert on the crime western Once Upon A Time In Mexico as well as yet another Spy Kids sequel - Game Over.

In 2005, he released the critically-lauded Sin City, a digital film noir bringing to life the cartoon hookers and hoodlums of Frank Miller's comic strip.