SODERBERGH, STEVEN

SODERBERGH, STEVEN (1963– ), U.S. film director. Soderbergh was born in Atlanta, Georgia, the second of six children. The family moved to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where Peter Soderbergh, his father, was a professor and dean of Louisiana State University's College of Education. As a teenager, Soderbergh enrolled in film classes at Louisiana State. In 1978, at age 15, he made a short film titled Janitor. After graduation from high school in 1980, he skipped college and went directly to Hollywood, where he worked as a freelance film editor. He wrote scripts and made short films, including a documentary about the rock group Yes. Soderbergh was asked to direct a concert film for the band, Yes: 9012 Live (1986), which earned him a Grammy nomination. His next project, the Southern drama sex, lies and videotape (1989), debuted at the Sundance Film Festival and earned Soderbergh the Palm d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival and an Oscar nod for best original screenplay; the film would go on to earn $100 million worldwide. Soderbergh followed his acclaimed debut with Kafka (1991), King of the Hill (1993), and The Underneath (1995). After Soderbergh filmed the Spalding Gray performance piece, Gray's Anatomy (1996), and the low-budget Schizopolis (1996), he returned to the mainstream with Elmore Leonard's Out of Sight (1998), starring George Clooney and Jennifer Lopez. Following the Terence Stamp-Peter Fonda thriller The Limey (1999), Soderbergh received Academy Award nominations for his Julia Roberts vehicle Erin Brockovich (2000) and the illegal drug trade thriller Traffic (2000); it was the first time a director had received a double nomination since 1938, and Soderbergh took the Oscar for Traffic. In 2000, Soderbergh and Clooney founded their production company, Section Eight. Soderbergh's next film was an all-star, big-budget remake of the Rat Pack film Ocean's Eleven (2001), which he juxtaposed with the remake of the Russian art film Solaris (2002) and the more independent-minded Full Frontal (2002), an unofficial sequel to sex, lies and videotape for which stars like Roberts, Clooney, and Brad Pitt agreed to work union scale. In March 2002, Soderbergh was elected the first vice president of the Directors Guild of America. He married a second time to model and TV host Jules Asner in 2003, and one year later reunited the Ocean's Eleven cast for the sequel Ocean's Twelve. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: "Soderbergh, Steven," in: Encyclopedia of World Biography Supplement, vol. 25 (Gale, 2005); "Soderbergh, Steven," in: International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers, Vol. 2: Directors (20054). WEBSITE: www.imdb/name/nm0001752\>\> . (Adam Wills (2nd ed.)