Robert Rodriguez

He was born in San Antonio, Texas.

Rodriguez debuted with the short film Bedhead and then went on to shoot the action flick El mariachi[?] in Spanish, inspired by John Woo films. El mariachi, which was shot for around $7,000 with money partially raised by volunteering in medical research studies, won the Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival in 1992, and the film, originally intended for the Spanish-language low-budget home-video market, was distributed by Columbia Pictures. Rodriguez described his experiences making the film in his book Rebel Without a Crew, which inspired legions of hopeful filmmakers, arguably only a fraction of whom were as talented as Rodriguez, to pick up cameras and make no-budget movies.

His next film was Desperado[?], a sequel to El mariachi starring Antonio Banderas. The film introduced Salma Hayek to American audiences. He collaborated with Quentin Tarantino on the vampire comedy From Dusk Till Dawn[?] and with Kevin Williamson on the teen horror sci-fi flick The Faculty[?].

In 2001, Rodriguez enjoyed his first $100-million Hollywood hit with Spy Kids, which went on to become a trilogy. A third "mariachi" film also appeared in late 2003, Once Upon a Time in Mexico.