Born in 1932 in C‡slav, Czechoslovakia, Forman was an orphan by 1943. Both of his parents were killed in Auschwitz and Buchenwald by the Nazis for political reasons. His father, a teacher and intellectual, was in the Underground movement. His mother was arrested by the Gestapo as part of a group accused of distributing anti-Nazi flyers. A disgruntled former employee turned Gestapo brute hated the Forman family and prevented her release.

Forman is well respected by his fellow Guild members, having served on the DGA's National Board as an alternate during 1982-83, as well as the Guild's President's Committee (formed to combat the colorization of black-and-white films, and now fighting to protect all moral rights of filmmakers) from its inception in 1986 to the present. He is also esteemed among his colleagues, having won two Oscars and two DGA Awards in a career filled with prestigious projects, even though his ouevre is one of the smallest of an international director: just ten features, one documentary and two short films in almost 40 years. Even Robert Bresson has made more films.  

After winning the two Oscars for two movies which were also named Best Pictures, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) and Amadeus (1984), Forman's career peaked. His follow-up, Valmont (1989), an adaptation of Les Liaisons Dangereuses, failed to find a following, and Hell Camp was shelved before shooting.  

The enthusiastic welcome accorded The People vs. Larry Flynt, the first Forman movie in seven years, is a vindication for the director. It has garnered him a Golden Globe Award for Best Director and an Academy Award nomination in the same category and won the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival. Flynt is also his first film in 25 years to be written originally for the screen -- although not by Forman but by Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski. In his suite at The Hampshire House in New York, Forman discussed with the DGA Magazine his career, as well as the Artists Rights Foundation, which recently announced it will be honoring him with its 1997 John Huston Award for Artists Rights in April.