Chris Columbus Movies and Career Information

Christopher Joseph Columbus (born September 10, 1958) is an American film director, producer and screenwriter. Columbus had most success with the first two films in the Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, along with Home Alone, winning a British Comedy Award for Best Comedy Film. Columbus was born in Spangler, Pennsylvania and raised in Youngstown, Ohio, the son of Mary Irene (née Puskar), a factory worker, and Alex Michael Columbus, an aluminium plant worker and coal miner. Columbus is of Italian and Czech descent. He graduated from John F. Kennedy High School in Warren, Ohio and from New York University's film school at the Tisch School of the Arts. There he was a schoolmate of Charlie Kaufman. Columbus worked as a screenwriter with Steven Spielberg's Amblin Productions, working on Gremlins (1984), The Goonies (1985) and Young Sherlock Holmes (1985). He wrote the first episodes of the animated series Galaxy High (1986) and later made his directorial debut with the teen comedy Adventures in Babysitting (1987) and Heartbreak Hotel (1988). His directorial work includes Home Alone (1990), Only the Lonely (1991),