Spike Lee Net Worth

Spike Lee's Quotes

• I've been blessed with the opportunity to express the views of black people who otherwise don't have access to power and the media. I have to take advantage of that while I'm still bankable.
• What's the difference between Hollywood characters and my characters? Mine are real.
• Making films has got to be one of the hardest endeavors known to humankind. Straight up and down, film work is hard shit.
• [after Do the Right Thing (1989) lost out on the Palme d'Or to Sex, Lies, and Videotape (1989) at the 1989 Cannes Film Festival] Wim Wenders had better watch out 'cause I'm waiting for his ass. Somewhere deep in my closet I have a Louisville Slugger bat with Wenders' name on it.
• "I respect the audience's intelligence a lot, and that's why I don't try to go for the lowest common denominator." -- at the New York premiere of his media satire "Bamboozled".

Interesting Facts about Spike Lee

1. Cousin of Malcolm D. Lee.
2. Big New York Knicks fan: Has courtside seats for all games. Partially responsible for the "off colored" baseball caps, as he started wearing a red Yankees cap during the 1996 World Series.
3. His production company is 40 Acres & A Mule Filmworks.
4. Son of Bill Lee.
5. Brother of Joie Lee, Cinqué Lee and David Lee.
6. After the Columbine high school shootings Spike said that National Rifle Association president Charlton Heston should be shot. Heston replied that if Spike wanted to take a shot at him he should go ahead and try it. Lee later apologized for the comments.
7. Serves as a master teacher of film at the Tisch School of the Arts and Harvard University.
8. Graduated from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts in 1982.
9. Graduated from Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia in 1979.
10. He has two children with his wife, Tonya: daughter, Satchel Lee (born in December 1994); and son, Jackson Lee (born in 1997).
11. His grandmother, Zimmie Shelton, an alumna of Spelman College (class of 1929), sent him to Morehouse College, the historically black all-male institution affiliated with the all-female Spelman College.
12. His grandmother, Zimmie Shelton, helped fund his first full-length feature film, She's Gotta Have It (1986).
13. He and producer/director Monty Ross are frequent collaborators and were classmates and graduates of Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia, USA.
14. Between the making of his award-winning student short, Joe's Bed-Stuy Barbershop: We Cut Heads (1983), and his debut feature, She's Gotta Have It (1986), Lee attempted to make a featured called "Messenger". Over $100,000 was raised, but the film never materialized.
15. The name of his production company, "40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks", came from an unfulfilled promise that many politicians made to freed slaves after the Civil War.
16. Was a Visiting Lecturer in Afro-American Studies and Visual and Environmental Studies at Harvard University in the early 1990s.
17. Is now (2002) the Artistic Director of the graduate division of the Kanbar Institute of Film and Television at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. The position gives Lee an advisory position, allowing him to teach and advise third year students, as well as aid with industry networking.
18. Vied for the director's seat on Ali (2001). Says that he knew he wouldn't get the job after speaking to the movie's star, Will Smith (one of the many financiers on Lee's Get on the Bus (1996)), who wanted Lee to make a film with "a broader appeal".
19. Has been trying for more than ten years to direct his dream project: a film about the life and times of Jackie Robinson. Says that he personally promised to Robinson's widow, Rachel Isum, to make the film. Another as-of-yet (2003) project he has often spoke of but has yet to do is a film on the boxing match between Joe Louis and Max Schmeling.
20. Was voted the 48th Greatest Director of all time by Entertainment Weekly.