Is a big cricket fan and is said to have incorporated the ideas of former England cricket captain Mike Brearly in his direction.
Educated at Cambridge University in Cambridge, England, UK.
Dated actress Calista Flockhart in the late spring and summer of 1999.
Dated Rachel Weisz. [2001]
Appointed a CBE in 2000.
Taught cricket (his passion) at Summer Fields School, Oxford, UK after leaving school for a year.
Ranked #91 in Premiere's 2003 annual Power 100 List.
Sam married English actress Kate Winslet in the West Indies in May 2003.
Resides in both New York City and London, England.
Son, Joe Alfie Winslet Mendes, was born on December 22, 2003, in New York, and weighed 7 pounds and 13 ounces.
He was awarded the Laurence Olivier Theatre Award in 1996 (1995 season) for Best Director for both Company and The Glass Menagerie at the Donmar Warehouse.
He was nominated for Best Director at the 1999 Laurence Olivier Theatre Awards for the 1998 production of The Blue Room.
He was nominated for a 1998 Laurence Olivier Theatre Award for Best Director of the 1997 season for Othello at the Royal National Theatre.
He was awarded the 2003 Laurence Olivier Theatre Award: Special for his services and contributions as Artistic Director of the Donmar Warehouse for the past ten years.
He was awarded the 2003 Laurence Olivier Theatre Award for Best Director of 2002 for Twelfth Night and Uncle Vanya in repertory company at the Donmar Warehouse in London.
He was awarded the 2002 London Critics Circle Theatre Award (Drama) for Best Director for both Uncle Vanya and Twelfth Night performed at the Donmar Warehouse.
He was awarded the 1995 London Critics Circle Theatre Award (Drama Theatre) for Best Director for The Glass Menagerie.
He was awarded the 1989 London Critics Circle Theatre Award (Drama Theatre Award) for Most Promising Newcomer as Director of Minerva Studio in Chichester, England.
He was awarded the 2002 London Evening Standard Theatre Award for Best Director for Uncle Vanya and Twelfth Night performed at the Donmar Warehouse.
Has a home in Cotswolds, England.
He is of Portuguese descent. His grandparents were both Portuguese.
Was nominated for Broadway's 1998 Tony Award as Best Director (Musical), along with collaborator Rob Marshall, for a revival of "Cabaret."
Was born in the same hospital as his wife, Kate Winslet.
In 2000 he won his first Tony Award for Best Revival of a Play for his production of The Real Thing
In 1999 he was Nominated for a Tony Award for Best Revival of a Play for Electra
Sam Mendes Detailed Biography
Samuel Alexander Mendes, CBE (born August 1, 1965) is an English stage and film director born in Reading, Berkshire, England. He is the son of a Portuguese Protestant father and an English Jewish mother. His father, Peter, is the son of the Trinidadian writer Alfred Mendes, author of the novels Black Fauns and Pitch Lake, and part of the group around CLR James and Albert Gomes which produced the Beacon literary magazine in the early 1930s. His secondary education was at Magdalen College School, Oxford, and he later attended the University of Cambridge. As a stage director, he is probably best known for his 1998 production of Cabaret, starring Alan Cumming.
As a film director, he is best known for his debut film, American Beauty, for which he won an Academy Award for Best Director.
In 2000, Mendes was made a Commander of the British Empire.
After a string of romances with actresses, including Cameron Diaz, Calista Flockhart and Rachel Weisz, Sam married English actress Kate Winslet on May 24, 2003 in Anguilla in the Caribbean. Their first child, Joe Alfie Winslet-Mendes, was born on December 22, 2003. Mendes also has a step-daughter, Mia Honey Threapleton, from Winslet's first marriage to assistant director Jim Threapleton. The family now lives in New York City and Cotswolds, England.
Won a Critics Circle Award for Best Newcomer after directing Judi Dench in The Cherry Orchard.
1990: Began directing for the Royal Shakespeare Company.
1992: became artistic director of the Donmar Warehouse theatre
1994: directed revival of Oliver! (with score specially revised and added to by the original composer and lyricist, Lionel Bart) at the London Palladium; the show ran for four years, becoming, on July 8, 1997, the longest-running show at that venue.
1994: directed revival of Cabaret
1998: revival of Cabaret opens on Broadway; wins four Tony Awards, including Best Musical (Revival)
1998: directed David Hare's The Blue Room, starring Nicole Kidman (and Iain Glen).
2003: directed a Broadway revival of Gypsy, starring Bernadette Peters.
2004: started his own production company, Scamp, and started it off with an import of the American play Fuddy Meers, which met with mixed reactions
1999: Film directorial debut: American Beauty; won Golden Globe Award for Film Directing and Academy Award for Directing.
2002: Road to Perdition (based on graphic novel by Max Allan Collins)
2005: Jarhead
2006: Sweeney Todd
