Someday, hopefully, a long way down the road, when we look back at the life of Steven Spielberg, we will celebrate one of the most successful and accomplished film directors that the medium has ever seen. But one does not achieve that sort of success in a vacuum and one of the people who had a profound influence on the director has now passed on himself. Steven Spielberg's father Arnold Spielberg has died at the age of 103.
Before Steven Spielberg changed the way we look at movies, Arnold Spielberg changed the way we look at technology. He received his degree in electrical engineering before going to work for General Electric in the 1950s and helping to design the GE-200 computer, which was the machine used to compose the BASIC computer language.
Arnold Spielberg fell in love with technology at an early age, reportedly turning his family's attic into a lab at the age of 6. He got into ham radios at the age of 12, making friends and telling stories with complete strangers, a passion he would pass on to at least one of his four children.
Spielberg enlisted in the Army in World War II working as a radio operator and chief communications man for the 490th Bomb Squadron. He would go on to make the cataloging of Holocaust testimonials a passion project, for which he would be recognized by the Shoah Foundation Institute of the University of Southern California in 2012.
Certainly, losing a parent is going to tough whenever it happens but it certainly appears that Arnold Spielberg led a full and complete life, and with more than a century of time to do everything he wanted, it seems like he accomplished that. According to Variety, the elder Spielberg spent his last days taking online courses educating himself on new things.
Steven Spielberg's production company Amblin noted the passing of Arnold Spielberg on social media.
Arnold Spielberg was a fan of the movies as well and even influenced his son's work. In the bonus content for Steven Spielberg's Bridge of Spies, the director tells a story about how his father spent time working in Russia during the cold war and the experience he had there.
Due to safety concerns, the family of Arnold Spielberg will hold a celebration of life at a later date, likely in 2021. The family has asked that in lieu of flowers, donations be made to the National World War II Museum in New Orleans or the Jewish War Veterans of the United States of America.
