Chris Joseph Columbus, who was born on September 10, 1958 in Spangler, Pennsylvania USA and raised in Ohio, aspired to draw comics for Marvel Comics; later he discovered that the comics closely resembled the graphic sketches of the directors of the scripts for their films. He knew he wanted to make movies after watching {@peliculas: El Padrino} at 15 years old. In high school, he began filming in 8mm and drawing his own storyboards.
After enrolling in the Directors Program at NYU film school, he sold his first screenplay, Jocks (never produced), a semi-autobiographical comedy about a Catholic student trying out for a football team. Although it was several times rewritten by others for the screen, this piece gave him the kickoff to enter the world of cinema.
After graduation, Columbus wrote a drama set in the city of steel called Reckless, based on his experiences as a laborer in Ohio. The film starred Daryl Hannah and Aidan Quinn. He then tried to sell his fourth screenplay, Gremlins, to no avail, until Steven Spielberg took an interest in it; Columbus moved to Los Angeles for a year to rewrite the project in Spielberg’s bungalow at Universal. The film combined warmth and quirkiness with violent antics and some truly mean moments; it was even more vicious than it was on screen, before Spielberg cleaned up the script. Gremlins’ success secured future writing assignments to Columbus in Spielberg projects such as Young Sherlock Holmes (1985) and The Goonies (1986).
He also came up with the concept for the 1986 television cartoon series, Galaxy High School, about an alien school populated by strange looking space aliens. Columbus got a chance to direct the mid-budget teen comedy Adventures in Babysitting in 1988. He followed up the box office success with Home Alone (1990), which made obscene amounts of money and placed Columbus firmly on Hollywood’s “A” list.
Continuing the alternation between writing and directing in the 1990s, Columbus continued to be a permanent Hollywood precense, producing and directing blockbusters such as Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992), Mrs. Doubtfire (1993), Nine Months (1995), Stay By My Side (1998) and The Man. bicentennial (1999). He is also recognized for producing (and directing the first two) the films of Harry Potter, and as a producer he won the BAFTA Award for Best Feature Films for Children with Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.
Columbus He is married to actress Monica Devereux, who has participated in several of his films. They both have four children.