- Michael J. Jacobs is an award-winning film director, photographer, journalist, fine artist, US Navy combat cameraman and educator who has traveled to nearly 70 countries and all the continents. As a implementation committee member, his master design concept has been approved for the new Martin Luther King Memorial and multi-media theatre to be housed in the New Mexico Holocaust & Intolerance Museum, of which, he was chair of the design committee.
During the course of Jacobs' 41 years as a professional photojournalist and news gatherer, he has earned respect from top marketing firms, entertainment industry executives and celebrities themselves. He quickly rose to the pinnacle of his profession as a world-renowned image-maker to the upper crust within the Hollywood celebrity establishment. Without mixing words, he has more than 20,000 contacts. They include numerous clients such as entertainment industry executives, actors, publicists and managers, politicians, the Royals, media, hi-tech experts, artists, developers, community leaders, financiers and bankers, religious and spiritual leaders, business' captains of industry, and the military.
In his directorial debut, Jacobs' feature film, "Crab Orchard," it took top honors as Best Film of the Festival (Director's Gold Award) at the International Family Film Festival. As an educator for the past 44 years, he has taught photography and art courses at various schools, colleges and universities both domestically and abroad, including six years at UCLA.
- IMDb mini biography by: Ruby Handler
- As a US Navy photojournalist during the Vietnam War, Michael stood on the tarmac at Clark Air Base in the Philippines in March 1973 when the first ex-POWs returned from Hanoi. Next to the aircraft, he photographed Army Capt. Floyd Thompon, longest-held American POW, to Navy CDR Jim Stockdale and LCDR John McCain.
- Driving force behind the creation of archival PVC-free polypropylene slide and negative sheets by 20th Century Plastics, now called Century Photo.
- Was chairman of I.F.G.A. foundation. This international non-profit focused on awareness surrounding the x-ray process and it's effect on film at airport scanners.
- Michael was the photographer on Entertainment Tonight's interview with the "MacKensie Brothers and Father Guido Sarducci" two days before John Belushi died from a drug overdose. Belushi was sitting in the background and didn't like a photographer aiming his camera in his direction and attacked Michael, only to be saved by the ET producer. This incident was reported by Dave Thomas in a Rolling Stone article, and was also founds in the book "Wired.".
- U.S. Representative Jane Harmon liked Michael's photograph so much that she used it as her official handout rather than the one taken by the legislature's photo division.
- Steven Spielberg said that he wasn't worried about Michael "because you know more people than I do."
- At Bill Clinton campaign event that Michael photographed, Barbra Streisand said, "I don't have to look at the photographs because I trust Michael to make a selection."
- Texas Governor Ann Richards said Michael "was born with a silver camera in your hands."
- Phil Stern, famous Hollywood photographer, said that Michael reminded him of himself and that he "never met another photographer who is in closer proximity to the stars."
- Martha Bardach (Time Magazine, West Coast Photo Editor) said that Michael is an "anomaly" in the world of photojournalism - "the only one who has direct access to publications and not through an agency."
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