Steven Pressfield is an American author, of historical fiction and non-fiction, and screenplays. He was born in Port of Spain, Trinidad, in 1943, while his father was stationed there, in the Navy. He graduated from Duke University in 1965 and in 1966 joined the Marine Corps. In the years following, he worked as an advertising copywriter, schoolteacher, tractor-trailer driver, bartender, oilfield roustabout, attendant in a mental hospital, fruit-picker in Washington state, and screenwriter. His struggles to make a living as an author, including the period when he was homeless and living out... of the back of his car, are detailed in his book The War of Art . His first book, "The Legend of Bagger Vance," was published in 1995, and made into a movie of the same name, starring Will Smith, Charlize Theron, and Matt Damon, and directed by Robert Redford. His second novel, "Gates of Fire," is about the Spartans and the battle at Thermopylae. It is taught at U.S. Military Academy and United States Naval Academy, and at the Marine Corps Basic School at Quantico.
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