Quentin Tarantino

AKA Quentin Jerome Tarantino

Born: 27-Mar-1963

Birthplace: Knoxville, TN



Gender: Male

Race or Ethnicity: White

Sexual orientation: Straight

Occupation: Film Director, Screenwriter, Actor

Nationality: United States

Executive summary: Pulp Fiction

Quentin Tarantino is a high school dropout and old-movie buff who went to work in a video store, and went on to make some terrific movies himself. As a writer and director, he is a master of smart-ass dialogue, pop-culture references, and sinister characters, and his movies are stuffed with nods to earlier, often obscure movies -- sometimes in the dialogue, other times reprising entire scenes. He loves hiring forgotten actors who deserve to be remembered, and has revived the careers of Lawrence Tierney in Reservoir Dogs, John Travolta in Pulp Fiction, Pam Grier and Robert Forster in Jackie Brown, and David Carradine in Kill Bill.

As an actor, Tarantino's first professional work was as an Elvis impersonator on The Golden Girls in 1988, a gig that helped immensely through his later struggles, as he kept getting residual checks for the show's ongoing reruns. His first screenplay, Captain Peachfuzz and the Anchovy Bandit, never sold, and has never yet been filmed. His second screenplay was True Romance, which made a nifty action-thriller with Christian Slater and Patricia Arquette, but Tarantino didn't direct it. It was Reservoir Dogs that made Tarantino the It Boy in Hollywood, and his time-twisted Pulp Fiction is considered his masterpiece. It was the first Tarantino film that crossed the $100 million barrier at the box office, qualifying as a mainstream blockbuster.

Tarantino lifted a lot of Reservoir Dogs from a subplot in a Chow Yun-Fat action thriller, Long hu feng yun (City on Fire). The two films tell substantially different stories, and Tarantino's film is better, but there's no denying the similarities -- an undercover cop infiltrating the criminals' gang, and eventually leveling about it after he's been shot, villains wearing sunglasses in slow-motion tough-guy strolling, the climactic Mexican standoff, and some very similar dialogue.

He worked as an actor in several films in the 1990s, to generally negative reviews. He co-starred with Harvey Keitel and George Clooney in From Dusk Till Dawn, and with Jennifer Aniston in Steven Spielberg's make-a-movie video game, Director's Chair. Tarantino also played a recurring role on Alias with Jennifer Garner.

In 2010, Tarantino quietly purchased the New Beverly Cinema, a revival movie theater in Los Angeles that specializes in retro double features. The theater was financially imperiled when Tarantino bought it, but he had been a frequent patron and loved the place. "As long as I'm alive," Tanantino said, "and as long as I'm rich, the New Beverly will be there, showing double features in 35mm."

He has earned a Billy Martin-esque reputation as a brawler, after fist fights with a cab driver, a producer of Natural Born Killers, and a stranger in a bar. He has also feuded publicly (but not thrown any punches) with Oliver Stone over Natural Born Killers, and with Spike Lee over the common use of the word 'nigger' in Tarantino's films.

Before either was famous, Tarantino and Hervé Villechaize shared a New York apartment. As a young man he was caught shoplifting a copy of an Elmore Leonard novel at a Kmart. Years later, his Jackie Brown was based on Leonard's Rum Punch.

Father: Tony Tarantino (musician)

Mother: Connie (McHugh) Zastoupil (office worker)

Sister: Tanya Marie (nurse, b. 4-Oct-1964)

Sister: Ronnajean Tarantino Murphy (anti-abortion activist, b. 22-Jun-1969)

Brother: Edward Tarantino (half-brother, lumberjack, b. 3-Oct-1974)

Father: Curt Zastoupil (stepfather, musician)

Girlfriend: Mira Sorvino (dated 1996-98)

Girlfriend: Sofia Coppola

Girlfriend: Margaret Cho

Girlfriend: Allison Anders

Girlfriend: Kathy Griffin (dated early 1990s)

Girlfriend: Julie Dreyfus (actress, Kill Bill Vol. 2)



High School: (dropped out)



Obama Victory Fund 2012

Edgar Allan Poe Award Best Motion Picture, for Pulp Fiction (1995)

Oscar for Best Screenplay 1995 for Pulp Fiction, with Roger Avary

Oscar for Best Screenplay 2013 for Django Unchained

Endorsement of Bacardi Dewar's scotch (2010)

Battery allegedly punched Leila Mwangi at the Three of Cups restaurant, Manhattan, NY (May-1998)

Shoplifting allegedly stole a copy of The Switch by Elmore Leonard from Kmart (1978)

Cherokee Ancestry Maternal

Irish Ancestry Maternal

Italian Ancestry Paternal

Risk Factors: Marijuana, Ecstasy, LSD



FILMOGRAPHY AS DIRECTOR

The Hateful Eight (7-Dec-2015)

Django Unchained (25-Dec-2012)

Inglourious Basterds (20-May-2009)

Death Proof (22-May-2007)

Grindhouse (6-Apr-2007)

Sin City (1-Apr-2005)

Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (16-Apr-2004)

Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (10-Oct-2003)

Jackie Brown (25-Dec-1997)

Four Rooms (16-Sep-1995)

Pulp Fiction (14-Oct-1994)

Reservoir Dogs (23-Oct-1992)



FILMOGRAPHY AS ACTOR

She's Funny That Way (29-Aug-2014)

Django Unchained (25-Dec-2012)

Nightmare Factory (27-Oct-2011) · Himself

Corman's World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel (21-Jan-2011) · Himself

Not Quite Hollywood: The Wild, Untold Story of Ozploitation! (28-Jul-2008) · Himself

Sukiyaki Western Django (31-Aug-2007)

Planet Terror (21-Jun-2007)

Death Proof (22-May-2007)

Grindhouse (6-Apr-2007)

The Muppets' Wizard of Oz (27-Apr-2005) · Himself

Planet of the Pitts (30-Nov-2004) · Himself

Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession (16-May-2004) · Himself

Double Dare (13-Mar-2004) · Himself

Little Nicky (2-Nov-2000)

God Said, 'Ha!' (14-Mar-1998) · Himself

Full Tilt Boogie (5-Sep-1997) · Himself

Girl 6 (22-Mar-1996) · Director #1 -- NY

From Dusk Till Dawn (19-Jan-1996) · Richard Gecko

Four Rooms (16-Sep-1995) · Chester

Desperado (May-1995) · Pick-up Guy

Destiny Turns on the Radio (28-Apr-1995)

Pulp Fiction (14-Oct-1994) · Jimmie

Somebody to Love (15-Sep-1994)

Sleep with Me (10-Sep-1994)

Reservoir Dogs (23-Oct-1992) · Mr. Brown







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