When Robert Zemeckis was growing up on the South Side of Chicago, his hard-working parents saw his obsessive interest in moviemaking as a hobby, something to amuse the relatives at family gatherings. They were shocked by his decision to go to film school at the University of Southern California and pursue the cinema as a career. That career has been one of the most dazzling in motion picture history. Films directed by Robert Zemeckis have earned over $2 billion to date. From the Back to the Future trilogy and Who Killed Roger Rabbit? to Forrest Gump and Contact, his movies have combined breathtaking special effects with authentically moving human stories. For Forrest Gump alone, he won every major Best Director award, including the award of the Directors Guild, the Golden Globe and the Oscar. He continues to revolutionize the art of movie-making with the dazzling computer graphics and performance capture technology seen in his film versions of the classics Beowulf and A Christmas Carol. In this podcast recorded at the Academy of Achievement's 1996 Summit in Sun Valley, Idaho, Zemeckis recalls his working class youth in Chicago, and describes his career as an example of the American Dream in action.