Spike Lee was born Shelton Jackson Lee on March 20, 1957, in Atlanta, Georgia. At a very young age, he moved from pre-civil rights Georgia to Brooklyn, New York, where he was raised in an artistic and education-grounded family. His father, a jazz musician, and his mother, a schoolteacher, instilled in him a strong foundation for his future endeavors.
Lee's early life was marked by his attendance at Morehouse College in Atlanta and Clark Atlanta University, where he developed his filmmaking skills. He later attended the Tisch School of Arts graduate film program, where he created a controversial short film, The Answer (1980),a reworking of D.W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation (1915).
After graduating from Morehouse, Lee went on to produce a 45-minute film, Joe's Bed-Stuy Barbershop: We Cut Heads (1983),which won a student Academy Award. This success allowed him to found his own production company, 40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks.
In 1986, Lee made his feature film debut with She's Gotta Have It (1986),a comedy about sexual relationships. The movie was made for $175,000 and earned $7 million at the box office, launching his career and paving the way for his future projects.
Lee's next film, School Daze (1988),was set at a historically black school and focused on the conflict between the school and the fraternities. The movie was a commercial success, and its profits allowed Lee to produce his landmark film, Do the Right Thing (1989),a movie based on his own neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York.
The film portrayed the racial tensions that emerge in the Bed-Stuy neighborhood on one very hot day and garnered Oscar nominations for Best Original Screenplay and supporting actor Danny Aiello. The movie also sparked a debate on racial relations and cemented Lee's status as a prominent filmmaker.
Lee went on to produce and direct the jazz biopic Mo' Better Blues (1990),which marked the beginning of a long-standing collaboration with actor Denzel Washington. The pair would work together on several films, including the biography of Malcolm X (1992),in which Washington portrayed the civil rights leader.
The movie was a success and garnered an Oscar nomination for Washington. Lee and Washington would continue to collaborate on films such as He Got Game (1998) and Inside Man (2006).
In addition to his feature films, Lee has also expanded his role as a documentarian, highlighted by his participation in Lumière and Company (1995) and the Oscar-nominated 4 Little Girls (1997). He has also produced several other documentaries, including A Huey P. Newton Story (2001) and When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts (2006).
Lee is married to Tonya Lewis Lee, and they have two sons, Satchel and Jackson. Through his production company, 40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks, Lee continues to create and direct both independent films and projects for major studios, as well as working on story development, creating an internship program for aspiring filmmakers, releasing music, and community outreach and support.
