November 17, 1942
Martin Charles Scorsese was born on November 17, 1942 in Queens, New York City, to Catherine Scorsese (née Cappa) and Charles Scorsese, who both worked in Manhattan's garment district, and whose families both came from Palermo, Sicily. He was raised in the neighborhood of Little Italy, which later provided the inspiration for several of his films. Scorsese earned a B.S. degree in film communications in 1964, followed by an M.A. in the same field in 1966 at New York University's School of Film. During this time, he made numerous prize-winning short films including The Big Shave (1967), and directed his first feature film, Who's That Knocking at My Door (1967).
He served as assistant director and an editor of the documentary Woodstock (1970) and won critical and popular acclaim for Mean Streets (1973), which first paired him with actor and frequent collaborator Robert De Niro. In 1976, Scorsese's Taxi Driver (1976), also starring De Niro, was awarded the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, and he followed that film with New York, New York (1977) and The Last Waltz (1978). Scorsese directed De Niro to an Oscar-winning performance as boxer Jake LaMotta in Raging Bull (1980), which received eight Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture and Best Director, and is hailed as one of the masterpieces of modern cinema. Scorsese went on to direct The Color of Money (1986), The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), Goodfellas (1990), Cape Fear (1991), The Age of Innocence (1993), Casino (1995) and Kundun (1997), among other films. Commissioned by the British Film Institute to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the birth of cinema, Scorsese completed the four-hour documentary, A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies (1995), co-directed by Michael Henry Wilson.
His long-cherished project, Gangs of New York (2002), earned numerous critical honors, including a Golden Globe Award for Best Director; the Howard Hughes biopic The Aviator (2004) won five Academy Awards, in addition to the Golden Globe and BAFTA awards for Best Picture. Scorsese won his first Academy Award for Best Director for The Departed (2006), which was also honored with the Director's Guild of America, Golden Globe, New York Film Critics, National Board of Review and Critic's Choice awards for Best Director, in addition to four Academy Awards, including Best Picture. Scorsese's documentary of the Rolling Stones in concert, Shine a Light (2008), followed, with the successful thriller Shutter Island (2010) two years later. Scorsese received his seventh Academy Award nomination for Best Director, as well as a Golden Globe Award, for Hugo (2011), which went on to win five Academy Awards.
Scorsese also serves as executive producer on the HBO series Boardwalk Empire (2010) for which he directed the pilot episode. Scorsese's additional awards and honors include the Golden Lion from the Venice Film Festival (1995), the AFI Life Achievement Award (1997), the Honoree at the Film Society of Lincoln Center's 25th Gala Tribute (1998), the DGA Lifetime Achievement Award (2003), The Kennedy Center Honors (2007) and the HFPA Cecil B. DeMille Award (2010). Scorsese and actor Leonardo DiCaprio have worked together on five separate occasions: Gangs of New York (2002), The Aviator (2004), The Departed (2006), Shutter Island (2010) and The Wolf of Wall Street (2013).
His parents were both children of Sicilian immigrants. As a child he was surrounded by prototypes for many of the characters who would later people his films. At first he wanted to be a painter amongst other professions before his long standing passion for the cinema led him to enroll for film classes at New York University, There he came under the influence of Haig Manoogian, a demanding but inspiring professor who helped produce what eventually became his first feature Who's That Knocking at my Door? (1965-69) While at NYU he discovered European art cinema, especially the French New Wave , Anonioni and Fellini as well as classic American genre films and Peeping Tom by Michael, Powell, a director whose work he'd first encountered as a child. He also started making short films which began to win prizes..He found difficulty in entering the film industry After being fired from directing The Honeymoon Killers in 1968 he taught at NYU and worked with the New York Newsreel Collective then edited the concert films Woodstock (1970) and Medicine Ball Caravan (1971) which took him to Los Angeles where Roger Corman gave him his first chance as a professional director on Boxcar Bertha (1972). More editing then followed, on Elvis on Tour " and Unholy Rollers before Jonathan Taplin offered to produce his next script based on his Little Italy youth -Mean Streets (1973) with rising star Robert de Niro. which earned great critical acclaim and earned Martin a major Hollywood project - Alice Doesn't Live Here Any More - the use of major studio's facilities and an Oscar for Ellen Burstyn, Taxi Driver (1976) won him the Cannes Palme d'Or and started an intermittent partnership with Paul Schrader as writer. Next came New York, New York (1977) and The Last Waltz (1978 and Raging Bull (1980) which won another Academy Award for it;s editing. After directing Paul Newman in The Color of Money (1986) followed by an episode in New York Stories and Cape Fear.
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