The Steven Spielberg grudge I carried for three decades

Towards the end of the last century, my father’s parents would frequent a hotel in Florida. They were not the only regulars, and, since old Jews have a habit of sticking together, they struck up friendships that would resume on an annual basis despite being separated by an ocean for the majority of the year. One fellow guest they considered a pal was a slightly older woman named Leah. 

After a few years of this, by which point my grandparents felt they knew Leah reasonably well, their American friend brought along her son. His name was (and indeed remains) Steven Spielberg. The Steven Spielberg, not his non-union Mexican equivalent.

It transpired Leah had failed to ever mention the fact that her lad was the most successful living filmmaker, quite probably the most popular in the history of cinema and the Family Fortunes top answer if the general public were asked to name a movie director.

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Knowing I was fanatical about the man’s work (Jaws was my favourite film by a mile and one I watched with a hot Ribena each and every time I was off school through illness), my grandma asked his mum whether he wouldn’t mind signing an autograph for me. She had an abundance of grandchildren, but knew just how much it would mean to me personally.

Grandma Shirley was never backwards in coming forward and just came out and asked the old dear. Her reply? “No, Steven’s on holiday; he shouldn’t have to do any work.” No doubt it’s annoying to get autograph requests near constantly, but “work” seemed a bit strong, and it would have been three seconds out of the day for something the recipient would genuinely still treasure decades down the line. And yes, of course I’m over it.

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I’ve never known who to blame for this incident. Did Spielberg’s mum make the decision on her own? Did my hero inform her of the party line in advance should anyone ask? All I know is that it happened in 1994 and seemed to coincide with the end of the great man’s imperial phase. Whether my grandmother cursed him or not is open to debate.

My grandfather on my mother’s side had the privilege of meeting the filmmaker years later through his life’s work educating people about the Holocaust and the dangers of hatred. Given that my grandpa survived Auschwitz while Spielberg only made a film about it, the correct construction of that sentence should be that Steven Spielberg had the privilege of meeting Zigi.

My grandparents are no longer around, and neither is Leah, since time always does its thing sooner or later. Spielberg will turn 80 this year, but he shows no signs of slowing down. Disclosure Day opened this month and has become the director’s most commercially successful film since Ready Player One in 2018. Halfway between that film and this came The Fabelmans, Spielberg’s most autobiographical film and one that explored the breakdown of his parents’ marriage in the 1950s. Michelle Williams was magnificent as the mother of the Spielberg proxy, but there was, regrettably, no flashforward to the 1990s and a scene in which one bubbe resolutely refused an autograph request from another.

Spielberg is one of just 22 people to have won an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony. Perhaps unsurprisingly, nine of those to have achieved EGOT status are Jews (one of whom, Mel Brooks, just turned 100). More impressively, his films have defined childhoods for half a century. Jaws, E.T., Indiana Jones, Jurassic Park. Like that other great populist, Charles Dickens, the popularity of his work has occasionally caused critics to bristle. In both cases, though, the general public is absolutely to be trusted, and how rare it is for that to be the case.

He is the highest-grossing film director in history and all but invented the concept of a blockbuster. He had the range to make both Hook and Schindler’s List. Four generations of my own family have had their lives enhanced by his art, and we are far from unique. He started the Shoah Foundation to archive the testimony of Holocaust survivors, an invaluable resource of greater importance than any film.

In short, I forgive Steven Spielberg.

• Darren Richman is a journalist