All About Steven Spielberg's Parents, Arnold Spielberg and Leah Adler

Director Steven Spielberg's parents, to whom he paid tribute in the film 'The Fabelmans,' had artistic lives of their own.

Throughout his career, Steven Spielberg’s two biggest fans were always his parents, Arnold Spielberg and Leah Adler.

They helped him make his first film when he was just a teenager in high school. The movie Firelight ended up being shown at a local theater in Phoenix, Arizona, and centered around an alien invasion.

“The story was a forerunner to Steven’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind, with aliens landing on Earth, and I built the special effects," Arnold told the Jewish Journal in 2012. "But while Steven would ask for my advice, the ideas were always his own.”

Related: Steven Spielberg Dedicates Award to Late Parents: 'They're Holding Hands Across the Stars Right Now'

Spielberg’s mother was also an early supporter of his work, and was an artist herself.

In a 1994 interview with the Los Angeles Times, Adler joked, “I told Steve, if I’d known how famous he was going to be, I’d have had my uterus bronzed.”

Although Arnold Spielberg and Leah Adler are best known for being the parents of one of Hollywood’s greatest filmmakers, their own stories are interesting as well. Here’s everything to know about Steven Spielberg’s parents.

They are both from Cincinnati, Ohio

Arnold was born in 1917, and Leah was born in 1920, both in Cincinnati, Ohio. Leah used to attend the Cincinnati Opera and performances at the Cincinnati Zoo, which helped her develop her love of music. She later attended the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music to study piano.

In the 1940s, she met Arnold, who had returned from serving in World War II and was studying electrical engineering at the University of Cincinnati. The two eventually married in 1945.

They had four children, including Steven Spielberg

Steven, 76, was their first child and only son. The couple next welcomed three daughters: Anne Spielberg, 73, became a screenwriter and was nominated for an Oscar for co-writing the 1988 Tom Hanks hit, Big. Sue Spielberg, 69, is a marketing executive, and Nancy Spielberg, 67, is a producer of indie films.

Steven said he is glad to be the oldest, as he often relied on his little sisters to be "talent" in his home movies.

He told the L.A. Times, “I’d be in big trouble if I had been born last.”

In a 1982 interview with The Washington Post, Sue talked about growing up and making films with her siblings.

"It's easier to remember us making movies than going to the movies," she said. "They were our summer projects. We stayed home and made movies with Steven.”

Sue also recalled that their father’s love of science fiction significantly influenced Steven’s filmmaking, as seen in his 1977 film Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

“My father was a great sci-fi fan and had an enormous collection of stories and novels," she recalled.

Arnold helped create the first personal computer

Arnold was interested in gadgets and electronics at a young age, building radios at just 9 years old. His skill with radios eventually led him to become a radio operator and communications chief during World War II, and he served during numerous bombing efforts in Asia.

After the war, Arnold became an accomplished computer scientist and engineer. He worked at RCA making circuits for missile systems and later got a job at GE. While there, he helped create the GE-225 mainframe computer in the late-1950s. A group at Dartmouth University later used this computer to write BASIC, the code used to operate personal computers for decades afterward.

Arnold’s experience in engineering and computer science also led him to work on the film Interstellar.

“I went to Caltech and met with the astrophysicists Kip Thorne and Lisa Randall and several other scientists, and we sat there and brainstormed ideas about black holes for the movie Interstellar," he told GE Reports in 2016. "It was a lot of fun because we kicked around all kinds of ideas about the size of black holes and how feasible they are and how likely there actually may be one.”

Leah was a musician and artist but became best known for her restaurant

Leah studied at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music and was a well-regarded pianist. After the family moved to Phoenix, she continued playing solo piano shows around town. Leah also opened a gallery, The Village Shop, in Scottsdale, which featured her artwork and works from other local artists and artisans.

Later in her life, she became best known for owning and operating the West L.A. restaurant The Milky Way. Leah was a staple at the eatery and was famous for her larger-than-life presence.

“My mom always wanted more, she was ‘the more mom,’ ” Steven told CBS Sunday Morning. “Enough wasn’t enough for mom. That’s a wonderful thing for a kid because she inspired me to be ambitious.”

Since the restaurant opened in 1977, it’s been famous for its kosher food and its kitschy, homey style that Leah purposefully designed. She wanted it to feel like diners were stepping into the Spielberg family home, so she adorned the restaurant with family photos and memorabilia from her kids' movies including E.T. and Big. But it was Leah’s welcoming and convivial personality that made the restaurant so beloved by patrons.

Arnold’s military service inspired many of Steven’s movies, including Saving Private Ryan

Arnold’s experience in World War II had a massive impact on Steven, who was born just a year after the war ended.

“I picked World War II because, growing up, it was the seminal conversation inside my family," Steven told the L.A. Times in 2018. "My parents talked about the Holocaust and they talked about World War II.”

“I was born knowing this,” he said. “My dad was a veteran, he was in the Army Air Corps from 1942 to the beginning of 1945. He had many veterans over to the house, and I became absolutely obsessed with the Second World War, based on my father's stories, recollections, and also based on all the World War II movies that eventually began playing on American television.”

World War II became an important setting for several of Steven’s films, including 1941 (1979), Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), Schindler’s List (1993), and most notably, Saving Private Ryan (1998), which he made as a tribute to his father.

His parents inspired his 2022 film The Fabelmans

Steven’s film The Fabelmans became one of the biggest hits of 2022, earning seven Oscar nominations and five Golden Globe nominations — with Spielberg winning the Golden Globe for best director.

The film is a retelling of his childhood, from his fond memories of making movies with his family to the trauma of discovering that his mother was having an affair.

Related: Steven Spielberg Says His Parents Were 'Nagging' Him to Make Movie About Them Before Their Deaths

Steven even says his parents persuaded him to make a movie about their family.

He told The Hollywood Reporter, "They were actually nagging me, 'When are you going to tell that story about our family, Steve?' And so this was something they were very enthusiastic about.”

He also recalled to the L.A. Times one instance where his mother said, “I’ve given you so much good material.”

Leah’s affair caused the couple to divorce and inspired E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial

Leah’s affair was a pivotal scene in The Fabelmans — as well as one from Spielberg's childhood. In the same L.A. Times interview, he recalled the moment he learned that his mother was romantically involved with his father’s good friend, Bernie Adler.

Steven had captured the two on film during a camping trip and played the footage for his mother one night when he was just 16. Leah collapsed in tears while watching the footage.

“My life ended in that moment,” he said. “Everything stopped. It was a freeze frame. She was on the floor, sobbing, saying, ‘Please don’t tell your father! Please don’t tell your father!’ ”

Arnold and Leah divorced, and Leah married Bernie in 1967.

While speaking at the Turner Classic Movies Film Festival in 2022, Steven explained that his parents' divorce inspired E.T. 

“What if that little creature never went back to the ship?” he said per The Independent. “What if the creature was part of a foreign-exchange program? What if I turn my story about divorce into a story about children, a family, trying to fill the great need and creating such responsibility?”

Spielberg added: “A divorce creates great responsibility, especially if you have siblings; we all take care of each other. What if Elliott, or the kid – I hadn’t dreamt up his name yet — needed to, for the first time in his life, become responsible for a life form to fill the gap in his heart?"

Both parents left a lasting legacy

Leah died in 2017 at age 97.

A statement obtained by The Hollywood Reporter read: "While known for her red lipstick and Peter Pan collars, for her love of daisies, for her blue jeans and sparkly bling, for her dancing from table to table around the Milky Way, and for her love of camping, fishing and crossword puzzles, Leah is best remembered for her deep, limitless love for the people around her.”

Arnold died in 2020 at age 103 of natural causes while surrounded by his family at home.

Leah and Arnold left a lasting legacy that includes their four children and 11 grandchildren.

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