Michael Mann
Born: 5th February 1943
Where: Chicago, Illinois
The award-winning writer and director is known for his technically slick and visually arresting yet humanly accessible style with movies like Heat, The Insider and Last of the Mohicans.
Trademarks include dramatic use of lighting, ambient scores and he often portrays criminals as sympathetic and often likeable.
He moved to England after attending the University of Wisconsin to study at London's International Film School.
After gaining his degree, he remained in Europe and formed a small production company to make documentaries, shorts and television series.
In 1970 the short Jaunpuri won prizes at Cannes and Melbourne and he returned to America the following year to direct, shoot and edit the documentary 17 Days Down The Line.
He also started writing for TV series including Starsky & Hutch before making his TV film debut with prison drama The Jericho Mile with Peter Strauss.
The following year he made his feature debut with The Thief, starring James Caan, before going on to make the gothic horror film The Keep with Gabriel Byrne and Scott Glenn.
In 1984 he catapulted Don Johnson and pastel suits into the limelight with the long-running TV series Miami Vice.
He followed this success with the thriller Manhunter, the precursor to Silence of the Lambs, which is widely regarded as the definitive take on Hannibal Lecter as portrayed by Brian Cox.
The movie was later remade as Red Dragon with Sir Anthony Hopkins returning to the role of Lecter.
In 1992 he directed Madeleine Stowe and Daniel Day-Lewis in the box office smash The The Last Of The Mohicans (the movie won an Oscar for best sound).
In 1995 Mann brought together two Hollywood giants, Robert De Niro and Al Pacino, who had never co-starred in a movie, for the taut thriller Heat.
Four years later, he directed The Insider, starring Russell Crowe, which attracted Oscar nominations for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Screenplay.
In 2001, Will Smith beefed up to play legendary boxer Muhammad Ali in Mann's well-received biopic. (Spike Lee campaigned against Mann, claiming only a black director was suitable).
Recent work includes the action thriller Collateral with Tom Cruise as an assassin who hires an LA taxi to ferry him between hits during the course of one night.
