Spike Jonze

Spike Jonze (born Adam Spiegel; October 22, 1969) is an American director, producer, screenwriter and actor, whose work includes music videos, commercials, film and television. He is best known for his collaborations with writer Charlie Kaufman, which include the 1999 film Being John Malkovich (which gave him a nomination for Academy Award for Best Director) and the 2002 film Adaptation, and as the co-writer/director of the 2009 film Where the Wild Things Are. He is well known also for his music video collaborations with Weezer, Beastie Boys, and Björk. He was also a co-creator and executive producer of MTV's Jackass. He is currently the creative director of VBS.tv. He is also part owner of skateboard company Girl Skateboards with riders Rick Howard and Mike Carroll. He also co-founded Directors Label, with filmmakers Chris Cunningham and Michel Gondry, and the Palm Pictures company. --- Spiegel was born in Brooklyn, New York, and raised in Bethesda, Maryland and in Gulph Mills, Pennsylvania. His father, Arthur H. Spiegel III, was a distant relation of the Spiegel catalog family and founded APM Management Consultants. His mother, Sandy Granzow, is a writer, communications consultant in developing countries, and artist. His brother Sam (aka Squeak E. Clean) is a producer and DJ. Jonze attended SFAI in San Francisco, California. He also has a sister. When he was in junior high and high school, Spiegel hung out at Rockville BMX, where the former owner Jay gave him his nickname "Spike Jonze" in reference to Spike Jones. He fronted Club Homeboy, an international BMX club, with Mark "Lew" Lewman and Andy Jenkins, both co-editors of Freestylin' Magazine in the mid- to late 1980s, where Jonze worked as a photographer. The three also created the youth culture magazines Homeboy and Dirt (the latter of which was described as "Sassy Magazine for boys," being published by the same company and distributed in cellophane bags with the landmark magazine for young women). --- On June 26, 1999, Jonze married director Sofia Coppola, whom he had first met in 1992. On December 5, 2003, the couple filed for divorce, citing "irreconcilable differences." The character of John, a career-driven photographer (Giovanni Ribisi) in Coppola's Lost In Translation (2003), was rumored to be based on Jonze, though Coppola has vehemently denied this. In 2008, Jonze dated Michelle Williams several months after the death of Heath Ledger, but around a year later they split. In 2011, it was reported that he was dating Japanese actress Rinko Kikuchi.