Stanley Kubrick's Napoleon: Kubrick Bio

Here is a snip from the Stanley Kubrick entry on the All Movie Guide web site:

In 1940 Stanley Kubrick's father Jack, a physician, sent the twelve year old Stanley to Pasadena, California to stay with his uncle Martin Perveler. Stanley was considered intelligent despite poor grades at school and Jack hoped that a change of scenery would produce better academic performance. Returning to the Bronx in 1941 for his last year of grammar school, there seemed to be little change in his attitude or his results. Hoping to find something to interest his son, Jack introduced Stanley to chess, with the desired result. Kubrick took to the game passionately, and quickly became a skilled player. Chess would become an important device for Kubrick in later years, often as tool for for dealing with recalcitrant actors, but also as an artistic motif in his films.

Jack Kubrick's decision to give his son a camera for his thirteenth birthday would be an even wiser move: Kubrick became an avid photographer, and would often make trips around New York taking photographs which he would develop in a friend's darkroom. After selling an unsolicited photograph to Look Magazine, Kubrick began to associate with their staff photographers, and at the age of seventeen was offered a job as an apprentice photographer.

In the next few years, Kubrick had regular assignments for "Look", and would become a voracious movie-goer. Together with friend Alexander Singer, Kubrick planned a move into film, and in 1950 sank his savings into making the documentary Day of the Fight (1951). This was followed by several short commissioned documentaries (Flying Padre (1951), and The Seafarers (1952)), but by attracting investors and hustling chess games in Central Park, Kubrick was able to make Fear and Desire (1953) in California.

Filming this movie was not a happy experience; Kubrick's marriage to high school sweetheart Toba Metz did not survive the shooting. Despite mixed reviews for the film itself, Kubrick received good notices for his obvious directorial talents.

More Kubrick documentary shorts from his early days: Flying Padre for RKO