Quentin Tarantino Biography

Quentin Jerome Tarantino was born on March 27, 1963, in Knoxville, Tennessee, United States, to Tony Tarantino, an actor and Connie McHugh, a nurse. He is of Italian-Irish-Cherokee ancestry. He was raised by his mother and stepfather, Curt Zastoupil.

He studied at Fleming Junior High School, where he took up drama classes and also studied at Narbonne High School, before he dropped out at the age of fifteen.

After he quit school, he attended James Best Theater Company but left it after 2 years.

Quentin Tarantino met Lawrence Bender at a party. The latter encouraged him to write his first screenplay, which he did and called it My Best Friend’s Birthday. However, the reel of the film was destroyed in a fire and the screenplay would go on to form the basis for True Romance.

He debuted as a director with the film, Reservoir Dogs, which released in 1992. The film became an instant hit and was screened at the Sundance Film Festival the same year.

In 1993, he write the screenplay for the American romantic-crime movie, True Romance starring Van Kilmer, Christian Slater and Gary Oldman. The following year, he wrote the screenplay for Natural Born Killers.

He had become so popular in Hollywood by now that many scriptwriters approached him for films like Speed and Men in Black. But he refused the scripts, withdrew to Amsterdam and began working on his next big project, Pulp Fiction.

In 1994, Pulp Fiction was released and received numerous awards for its ingenious direction and non-linear story line. It became so popular that he was nominated for the category of Best Director for the Academy Awards.

‘Inglourious Basterds’, the war film directed by Quentin Tarantino in 2009, is one of the biggest American blockbusters till date and earned a whopping $321 million in theaters worldwide. The movie went on to receive a number of important awards, including eight Academy Award nominations. The film is till date, the second highest commercially successful film in the United States and was showcased at the 62nd Cannes Film Festival.

He has been romantically linked with a number of women including Mira Sorvino, Sofia Coppola, Allison Anders, Kathy Griffin, Uma Thurman, Margaret Cho and Didem Erol. In 2018, he married Daniella Pick and they welcomed a son in 2020. On February 9, 2022, they announced that they were expecting their second child together. They welcomed their child in July 2022.

He is best-friends with collaborator, Robert Rodriguez. He is also close to Paul Thomas Anderson, Kevin Smith and Harvey Keitel.