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For director Steven Spielberg, the movie bug bit early—and bit hard. By 12, he was wowing Boy Scout buddies with his first Western short. A year later, the scrawny, geeky middle schooler was directing high schoolers in an ambitious war-themed film. It wasn't his first. And it definitely wouldn't be his last. Born in Cincinnati in 1946, Spielberg moved with his family to New Jersey when he was three years old. There, he saw his first movie and watched television on the family's first TV. But it wasn't until a 10-year-old Spielberg and his family moved to Arizona in 1957 that he encountered what would become the focus of his childhood and adult life: telling stories on film.

Though making movies was an unusual pastime for a high school junior in the 1950s and '60s, Spielberg h

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