Steven Spielberg felt bullish on the morning of Feb. 17, 1976. “Jaws is about to be nominated in 11 categories,” he crowed to a documentary crew he’d invited to film him watching the Oscar nominations announcement on TV. “You’re about to see us sweep the nominations.”
Spielberg had reason to be confident. At 29, he had directed the highest-grossing film of all time, catapulting him to the heights of the Hollywood hierarchy. Universal’s Sid Sheinberg had gloated, “I want to be the first to predict that Steve will win the Best Director Oscar this year.”
Now, surrounded by friends and employees, Spielberg called out from his desk, “Carol? Can everybody in this room have coffee, with the exception of myself, who would like a cup of tea?” He hunched over an office chair, fists planted in his cheeks and a camera in his face, and watched the nominations announced for Best Director: Robert Altman, Federico Fellini, Miloš Forman, Stanley Kubrick, and Sidney Lumet.
