He fell in love with film in his teens (his favorite movies included Taxi Driver, Chinatown, and Shampoo) but aspired to become a writer Russell started a newspaper in high school and wrote short stories. He attended Mamaroneck High School, where he was voted 'Class Rebel'. When he was 13, Russell made his first film for a school project and used a Super 8 film camera to film people in New York City. His paternal grandfather, a butcher from the Upper West Side of Manhattan, lost many of his relatives in concentration camps. His father was from a Russian-Jewish family, and his mother was Italian-American (of Lucanian descent). His parents worked for Simon & Schuster his father was the vice president of sales for the company, and his mother was a secretary there. Russell was raised in Larchmont, New York, in an atheist, middle-class household. He was also accused of an alleged assault including a sexual abuse of his 19-year-old transgender niece in 2011 and physically abused Christopher Nolan at a party in Hollywood. Russell has garnered controversy on and off the set for antagonistic behavior towards the actors in his films including George Clooney, Lily Tomlin, and Amy Adams. Russell received his seventh Golden Globe nomination for the semi-biographical comedy-drama Joy (2015). The three films were commercially successful and acclaimed by critics, having earned Russell three Academy Award nominations for Best Director, as well as a Best Adapted Screenplay nomination for Silver Linings Playbook and a Best Original Screenplay nomination for American Hustle. He gained critical success with the biographical sports drama The Fighter (2010), the romantic comedy-drama Silver Linings Playbook (2012), and the dark comedy crime film American Hustle (2013). His early directing career includes the comedy films Spanking the Monkey (1994), Flirting with Disaster (1996), Three Kings (1999), and I Heart Huckabees (2004). David Owen Russell (born August 20, 1958) is an American filmmaker.

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