Paul Verhoeven

Paul Verhoeven (Dutch: [ˈpʌu̯l vərˈɦuvə(n)]; born 18 July 1938) is a Dutch director, screenwriter and film producer. Active in both the Netherlands and Hollywood, Verhoeven's blending of graphic violence and sexual content with social satire are trademarks of both his drama and science fiction films. He directed the films Turkish Delight (1973), RoboCop (1987), Total Recall (1990), Basic Instinct (1992), Showgirls (1995), Starship Troopers (1997) and Elle (2016). Turkish Delight received the award for Best Dutch Film of the Century at the Netherlands Film Festival. His films altogether received a total of nine Academy Award nominations, mainly for editing and effects. Verhoeven won the Saturn Award for Best Director for Robocop. His Dutch war film Black Book (2006) was nominated for a BAFTA Award for Best Film Not in the English Language and was voted by the Dutch public, in 2008, as the best Dutch film ever made. In contrast, he won the Golden Raspberry Awards for Worst Picture and Worst Director for Showgirls; he is one of the few people to have accepted their Golden Raspberry awards in person, and was the first person to go to the ceremony to receive it. The Seattle Times praised Verhoeven by saying, "director Paul Verhoeven often appears to be a one-man Dutch movie industry," while The San Diego Union called Verhoeven "a busy bee whose movies pollinate the festival circuit." 2Early life Paul Verhoeven was born in Amsterdam on 18 July 1938, the son of a school teacher, Wim Verhoeven, and a hat maker, Nel van Schaardenburg. His family lived in the village of Slikkerveer.In 1943 the family moved to The Hague, the location of the German headquarters in the Netherlands during World War II. The Verhoeven house was near a German military base with V1 and V2-rocket launchers, which was repeatedly bombed by Allied force