The mentor who took Steven Spielberg under his wing: “He was expecting surprises, I was a surprise”
While his rise was undeniably meteoric, it wasn’t quite a case of Steven Spielberg coming out of nowhere and turning the established norms of the cinema industry upside down at the first attempt.
As far as breakthrough features go, though, Jaws has arguably never been bettered. A nightmarish production beset with issues arising from all sides and a cast who couldn’t stand each other, nobody was expecting the glorified B-movie to make the splash that it did.
Jaws became the highest-grossing release of all time, created the blockbuster model of saturating as many cinemas as possible on opening day that Hollywood has relied on ever since, and anointed Spielberg as the most exciting mainstream director of his generation.
It was a watershed moment without a doubt, but he wasn’t a rookie, either. Spielberg had two features under his belt already with Duel and The Sugarland Express, as well as short film Amblin’, and one-shot directing gigs on eight different TV shows before he’d even scared audiences the world over out of the water.
The highest-profile series he worked on during that period was Columbo, with Spielberg helming the first episode of the first season. The show would eventually run for 18 years, nine seasons, and almost 70 instalments, turning Peter Falk’s title character into a small screen icon in the process.
It was especially memorable for the upstart filmmaker, who was introduced to the actor who’d been a protégé of the acclaimed auteur who ultimately became a mentor to Spielberg, too. “He really took me under his wing, and he was great to work with,” the three-time Oscar winner told Empire of Falk. “And because he was trained by John Cassavetes and he was expecting surprises, I was a surprise to him.”
Going one step further, Spielberg compared the relationship between himself and the legendary director to one of the most important in Broadway history. “I also knew John very well. Where Oscar Hammerstein was the mentor to Stephen Sondheim, John Cassavetes was my mentor,” he said. “I worked on a couple of his productions as a production assistant, and he really checked in with me and kept in touch with me right until the time he passed.”
Spielberg spent two weeks working as an uncredited production assistant on Cassavetes’ classic 1968 drama Faces, the year before he made his behind-the-camera debut as a director on anthology series Night Gallery. That instant bond between them served the former very well when he encountered another member of the latter’s inner circle on Columbo, and they remained close until Cassavetes’ death in 1989.
Unless he was a clairvoyant, he’d have never been able to predict that his protégé would become one of the most influential and successful directors the industry had ever seen, but Cassavetes would have been bursting with pride nonetheless.
