| Steven E. de Souza | |
|---|---|
| Born | 17 November 1947 (age 61) Philadelphia, Pennsylvania |
Steven E. de Souza (born 17 November 1947) is an American producer, director and screenwriter. He is among a handful of screenwriters whose films have earned over two billion dollars at the box office.
Life and career
De Souza was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of Evelyn and Walton Henriques de Souza.[1] His father was Jamaican and his cousin is pianist Monty Alexander.[2] He attended Penn State.
De Souza is credited with being the writer for seven TV series, including The Six Million Dollar Man, The Bionic Woman, Knight Rider, "The Powers of Matthew Star" with a note of trivia that Tom Cruise and Heather Locklear had auditioned for the lead parts, but were passed over in favor of Peter Barton and Amy Steel and Tales from the Crypt. He was also responsible for several of the most successful films of the 1980s including 48 Hrs., Die Hard, Die Hard 2 and Commando.
De Souza later scripted Beverly Hills Cop III, Judge Dredd and Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life, and produced and directed a number of films, including the much maligned, though profitable, Street Fighter film adaptation.
De Souza started his film career producing the low budget film Arnold's Wrecking Co. in which he gathered a few of his friends and neighbors to create. Although the film has been heralded as dreadful, it succeeded in gathering attention and got his name out.
He has been nominated twice for the Edgar Allan Poe award, an award given to any piece of media for excellence in mystery writing. The first in 1984 for 48 Hrs. and again in 1989 for Die Hard. de Souza also won the Razzie Award in 1991 when Hudson Hawk garnered enough hatred to be dubbed "Worst Screenplay." Recently, in 2000 he was honored with the Norman Lear Award for Lifetime Achievement in writing.
In 2002, he signed on to write a draft of The Ghost Who Walks, based on Lee Falk's comic The Phantom. However, he was replaced by Mel Stewart and Mark Brewington.
In 2007, de Souza appeared in the feature-length documentary Dreams on Spec, which profiled three aspiring screenwriters and featured comments from a number of distinguished writers like James L. Brooks, Nora Ephron, Carrie Fisher, and him.
His daughter Amy de Souza has worked miscellaneous film crew jobs.
References
External links
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