This day in history: ET phones home (well, the theatres, at least)

As a child, Steven Spielberg felt lonely and isolated after his parents’ divorce. The loneliness he lived with his special imagination created an imaginary friend we all now know as E.T.

Set in suburban California, the movie tells the story of Elliott and a gentle alien who gets left behind on Earth, then forms a deep attachment with Elliott, who, with the help of his siblings, helps E.T. build a communication device to “phone home” for a rescue.

On many occasions, Spielberg talked about his inspiration to imagine and create. He once said, “We’re all inspired. I’m inspired all the time, but my inspirations are a sum of all my parts, and all of my parts started back in 1947 when I was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, and kind of accumulated the dust or the pollen of my experience right up until E.T.”

The movie was written by Melissa Mathison, produced by Spielberg and Kathleen Kennedy on a modest $10.5 million budget compared to other 80s sci-fi movies. In its opening week, the movie earned $11.8 million.

Carlo Rambaldi, the Italian special effects designer, designed and created E.T. puppet. Then, to bring the puppet to life, Matthew DeMeritt, a 12-year-old who was born without legs, performed E.T.’s famous waddling walk with two other actors, Tamara De Treaux and Pat Bilon, who also did some wide shots and walking scenes.

Matthew wore a rubber custom suit and walked on his hands instead of moving the character with stop-motion or animatronics. For the music, John Williams, well known for his work on the Star Wars and Indiana Jones, composed the theme song.

E.T. won four Oscars out of its nine total nominations and two Golden Globe Awards. It was also added to the National Film Registry established by the U.S. Library of Congress in 1994.

Richard Corliss, American film critic and editor in TIME magazine, reviewed the film after premiering at the Cannes Film Festival : “E.T. is a perfectly poised mixture of sweet comedy and ten-speed melodrama, of death and resurrection, of a friendship so pure and powerful it seems like an idealized love.”