
Spike Lee was born Shelton Lee in 1957, in Atlanta, Georgia. At a very young age, he moved from pre-civil rights Georgia, to Brooklyn, New York. Lee came from a proud and intelligent background. His father was a jazz musician, and his mother, a school teacher. His mother dubbed him Spike, due to his tough nature. He attended school in Morehouse College in Atlanta and developed his film making skills at Clark Atlanta University. After graduating, he went to the Tisch School of Arts graduate film program. He made a controversial short, The Answer (1980), a reworking of D.W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation (1915) -- a ten-minute film. Lee went on to produce a 45-minute film Joe's Bed-Stuy Barbershop: We Cut Heads (1983), which won a student academy award. Lee's next film, "The Messenger," in 1984, was somewhat biographical. In 1986, Spike Lee made the film, She's Gotta Have It (1986), a comedy about sexual relationships. The movie was made for 175,000 dollars, and made seven million. Since then, Lee has become a well-known, intelligent, and talented film maker. His next movie was School Daze (1988), which was set in a historically black school and focused mostly on the conflict between the school and the Fraternities, of which he was a strong critic, portraying them as materialistic, irresponsible, and uncaring. Lee went on to do his landmark film, Do the Right Thing (1989), a movie specifically about his own town in Brooklyn, New York. The movie portrayed a neighborhood on a very hot day, and the racial tensions that emerge. The movie garnered an Oscar nomination, for Danny ...more
Movie | Sidney | Self | 2022-09-10 |
Movie | Seen It All | Mars Blackmon | 2022-05-16 |
Movie | Axé: Music of a People | Self (archive footage) | 2017-01-19 |
Movie | Birth of a Movement | Self | 2017-02-06 |
Movie | Michael Jackson's Journey from Motown to Off the Wall | Self | 2016-02-06 |
Movie | Champs | Self | 2015-03-13 |
Movie | French Cinema Mon Amour | Self | 2015-07-06 |
Movie | Bad 25 | Self | 2012-11-22 |
Movie | Brooklyn Boheme | Self | 2012-02-27 |
Movie | Red Hook Summer | Mr. Mookie | 2012-08-10 |
Movie | Guest | Self | 2011-03-25 |
Movie | A Man's Story | Self | 2011-10-08 |
Series | Who Do You Think You Are? | Unknown | 2010-03-05 |
Movie | Kobe Doin' Work | Self | 2009-05-16 |
Movie | Beyond Wiseguys: Italian Americans & the Movies | 2008-01-20 | |
Movie | Pixote In Memoriam | Self | 2007-10-30 |
Movie | By Any Means Necessary: The Making of 'Malcolm X' | Self | 2005-02-08 |
Movie | Street Fight | Self | 2005-04-23 |
Movie | How to Eat Your Watermelon in White Company (and Enjoy It) | 2005-04-07 | |
Movie | Best Sellers or: Peter Sellers and 'Dr. Strangelove' | Self | 2004-10-28 |
Movie | No Fighting in the War Room Or: 'Dr Strangelove' and the Nuclear Threat | Self | 2004-10-28 |
Series | Real Time with Bill Maher | Unknown | 2003-02-21 |
Movie | The Evolution of an American Filmmaker | Self | 2003-05-20 |
Movie | It's Black Entertainment | Self | 2002-02-08 |
Movie | 3 A.M. | Filmmaker | 2001-07-01 |
Movie | Michael Jordan to the Max | Self | 2000-05-05 |
Movie | Lisa Picard Is Famous | Spike Lee | 2000-05-14 |
Series | The Early Show | Unknown | 1999-11-01 |
Movie | Summer of Sam | John Jeffries | 1999-06-28 |
Movie | 4 Little Girls | Interviewer (voice) (uncredited) | 1997-07-09 |
Series | The View | Himself | 1997-08-11 |
Series | The Daily Show | Unknown | 1996-07-22 |
Movie | Girl 6 | Jimmy | 1996-03-22 |
Movie | When We Were Kings | Self | 1996-10-25 |
Movie | The Fine Art of Separating People from Their Money | Self | 1996-11-17 |
Movie | Clockers | Chucky | 1995-09-15 |
Movie | A Century of Cinema | Self | 1994-01-01 |
Movie | Drop Squad | Himself | 1994-10-28 |
Movie | The Last Party | Self | 1993-08-27 |
Movie | Farewell, Babylon! | Self | 1993-08-28 |
Movie | Seven Songs for Malcolm X | 1993-10-01 | |
Series | Ghostwriter | Special Agent Pete | 1992-10-03 |
Movie | Malcolm X | Shorty | 1992-11-18 |
Movie | Jungle Fever | Cyrus | 1991-06-07 |
Movie | Mo' Better Blues | Giant | 1990-08-03 |
Movie | Lonely in America | Spike Lee | 1990-09-30 |
Movie | Making 'Do the Right Thing' | Self | 1989-11-03 |
Movie | First Works | Self | 1989-10-10 |
Movie | Decade | Self | 1989-12-09 |
Movie | School Daze | Darrell 'Half-Pint' Dunlap | 1988-02-12 |
Movie | She's Gotta Have It | Mars Blackmon | 1986-08-08 |
Series | Saturday Night Live | Unknown | 1975-10-11 |
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