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Take the word of another eternal youth, Michael Jackson. For years the pop megastar was rumored to have been chosen by Spielberg to play Peter Pan in a new adaptation of the James M. Barrie tale. It was not to be, and at the moment Jackson is working with Lucas on a project. But the reclusive young thriller declares it "my honor" to speak about Spielberg. "I must have seen E.T. around 40 times, and Jaws a good hundred or so," Jackson says. "You feel loved in his films. Steven never sleeps, never rests at ease. Last year, during the Victory Tour, I was on vacation with him in the Hamptons. But instead of vacating like everybody else, he found a Betamax and we made movies. He put a plastic bag around the whole camera, taped it up and shot underwater scenes in the swimming pool. I worked the lights. He is constantly creating, because making movies is like playing. He will always be young. I love Steven so much, it almost makes me cry. He inspires me more than anybody on earth today."
Hear, from the other end of the age scale, the evidence of David Lean. The director of Lawrence of Arabia and A Passage to India had seen Spielberg's 1971 TV movie Duel, released as a theatrical feature in Europe, and "immediately I knew that here was a very bright new director. Steven takes real pleasure in the sensuality of forming action scenes -- wonderful flowing movements. He has this extraordinary size of vision, a sweep that illuminates his films. But then Steven is the way the movies used to be. He just loves making films. He is entertaining his teenage self -- and what is wrong with that? I see Steven as a younger brother. I suppose I see myself in him. I have rarely felt so at ease with anyone. Curious thing, that."
Or maybe not so curious. Spielberg has that tonic effect on a lot of people. Prowling the bustling Amazing Stories set in his blue baseball cap, brown leather bomber jacket, salmon-colored jeans, pink socks and gray running shoes with SPIELBERG stamped on the heels, the Mogul of Magic looks just old enough to be the classmate-coach at a college touch-football scrimmage. He has time for everyone, with a few jokes in between: "TV stands for Tender Vittles. That's what we're givin' 'em, folks, Tender Vittles." Spielberg's noncombative vitality infects everyone he works with. Says Richard Donner: "Steven is over your shoulder the whole time. He always bows to you because you're the director, but he's got so many good ideas that you want to grab every one of them. It's as if he's 17 going on 18. Next year he's going to learn to drive."
The drive is there already, four on the floor, nonstop. "I dream for a living," Spielberg explains. "Once a month the sky falls on my head, I come to, and I see another movie I want to make. Sometimes I think I've got ball bearings for brains; these ideas are slipping and sliding across each other all the time. My problem is that my imagination won't turn off. I wake up so excited I can't eat breakfast. I've never run out of energy. It's not like OPEC oil; I don't worry about a premium going on my energy. It's just always been there. I got it from my mom."