Steven Spielberg names the director that was his “closest friend for 30 years”
Close friendships are a difficult thing to maintain in a place like Hollywood, but Steven Spielberg has never had any such issues, with the filmmaker’s easy-going personality and reputation for being an all-round nice guy ensuring he’s always been surrounded by a close inner circle.
The legendary director struck up one of the most influential bromances in cinema history when he first encountered George Lucas, with the pair constantly reinventing the face of the business when they each helmed the highest-grossing movie of all time in Jaws and Star Wars before partnering up as the co-creators of the Indiana Jones franchise.
They’ve been close for decades, but in what surely must be a dagger to the heart of the plaid enthusiast responsible for a galaxy far, far away, Spielberg is on record as naming somebody other than Lucas as being his closest personal acquaintance over the course of three decades. Not to be rude about it, but that guy’s dead now, so it’s presumably been the Star Wars originator’s spot ever since.
Spielberg’s breezy Catch Me If You Can was released in December 2002, a little over two months after Bruce Paltrow passed away from complications related to cancer and pneumonia. In tribute, the director added a dedication to the credits of the Academy Award-nominated caper, explaining how he wanted to honour Paltrow’s memory.
“Bruce was my closest friend for 30 years,” he explained to Black Film. “He gave my wife away at our wedding, walked her up the aisle. I met him when his wife Blythe was eight months pregnant with Gwyneth so I’ve known Gwyneth and Jake all my life and all their lives, and he was one of my closest friends and one of my wife’s closest friends.”
The connection runs even deeper with that after Paltrow directed the 1982 comedy A Little Sex, which marked the feature debut of Cate Capshaw. Spielberg would then hire her to play Willie Scott in her second movie Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, where they struck up a relationship and got married in 1991.
Spielberg said of Paltrow that “he was the one who told her she should marry me and I should marry her,” and they’ve been together ever since. In addition to knowing Gwyneth Paltrow since the day she was born, the Jurassic Park and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial orchestrator is also the Oscar-winning actor and vagina-smelling candle merchant’s godfather, so he’s basically part of the family and has been for a long time.
Most people would probably operate under the assumption that Lucas was Spielberg’s BFF, but Paltrow occupied that position for 30 years before his death, and the impact he had on the director’s personal life was fittingly monumental.
