He grew up in Brooklyn, New York, an area that figures largely in his work as a mature filmmaker. Lee's awareness of his African American identity was established at an early age. His mother, Jacquelyn, instilled in her children a schoolteacher's enthusiasm for black art and literature.
Spike Lee's presence can be seen, felt, and heard throughout Brooklyn, where the director, screenwriter, and actor spent many of his formative years: after living in Crown Heights, the Lees were the first Black family to move to the largely Italian-American enclave of Cobble Hill.
Although he was actually born in Atlanta, Lee is pretty much a de facto native New Yorker. He moved to Cobble Hill with his family at the age of 4 and then eventually relocated to Fort Greene, the neighborhood he calls home to this day.
Spike Lee (born March 20, 1957, Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.) American filmmaker known for his uncompromising provocative approach to controversial subject matter.
Extended cut: Spike Lee shares his life and career with immersive exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum
Did Spike Lee attend NYU?
He is a graduate of Morehouse College and New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, where he is a tenured Professor of Film and Artistic Director. Lee's Production Company 40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks is based in Da Republic of Brooklyn, NY.
Spike Lee was born Shelton Lee in 1957, in Atlanta, Georgia. At a very young age, he moved from pre-civil rights Georgia, to Brooklyn, New York. Lee came from a proud and intelligent background. His father was a jazz musician, and his mother, a school teacher.
He is celebrated for his roles as a director, producer, screenwriter, actor, and writer. As of 2024, Spike Lee's wealth is estimated to be around $60 million.
Spike Lee. Renowned director known for hard hitting films like “Do the Right Thing” is also a resident of Martha's Vineyard, living in Oak Bluffs, where he built his house in 1992.
The two met in Washington, D.C., at the Congressional Black Caucus, said Lee, clarifying that the event was screening a trailer for his film Malcolm X. Lewis Lee went on behalf of her father, who was the treasurer of Philip Morris at the time.
Among them African-American painter Michael Ray Charles' work Bamboozled (1997) (which inspired Lee's 2000 film of the same title), an autographed Angela Davis FBI Wanted poster, and photographs of legendary Black figures James Baldwin and Fedrick Douglas.
How old was Spike Lee when he made Do the Right Thing?
(The movie ends with a quote from Malcolm X, who justifies militant violence as ”self-defense.”) At worst, the most irate critics claim, Do the Right Thing is dangerously incendiary — and might even cause riots during a long, hot summer of discontent. Lee, a 32-year-old bantamweight, is no stranger to controversy.
His mother nicknamed him "Spike" during his childhood. He attended John Dewey High School in Brooklyn's Gravesend neighborhood. Lee enrolled in Morehouse College, a historically black college in Atlanta, where he made his first student film, Last Hustle in Brooklyn.
Spike Lee, film director, producer and screenwriter, is renowned for a body of work that explores African American experience, challenges racial stereotypes, and addresses controversial subjects. Lee is also credited with opening up the American film industry--to an unprecedented degree--to the contributions of black ...
He attended school in Morehouse College in Atlanta and developed his film making skills at Clark Atlanta University. After graduating from Morehouse, Lee attended the Tisch School of Arts graduate film program. He made a controversial short, The Answer (1980), a reworking of D.W.
His favorite movie is The Deer Hunter (1978). It is the movie that inspired him to be a director. His grandmother, Zimmie Shelton, helped fund his first full-length feature film, She's Gotta Have It (1986).
Shelton Jackson Lee earned his nickname early: his mama called him “Spike” as a baby because she noticed he was tough. The eldest of three children, Spike Lee was born in Atlanta, Georgia, though his family would move to what he calls “the Republic of Brooklyn” when he was two years old.
Christy and I recently spent an unforgettable Saturday afternoon talking to the singular force of nature that is Spike Lee about his mother, Jackie, who died when Spike was a sophomore at Morehouse College.
Lee was born in 1957 in Georgia and moved to Fort Greene with his family as a child, where he was raised and still lives today. Lee directed his first feature-length film, "Joe's Bed-Stuy Barbershop: We Cut Heads," while receiving his MFA at the New York University Tisch School of the Arts.
He has also received two special Oscars, a Student Academy Award for Joe's Bed-Stuy Barbershop: We Cut Heads (1983), and an Honorary Academy Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2016.
