Chris Joseph Columbus is an American filmmaker. Columbus is known for directing movies such as Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone , Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets , Mrs. Doubtfire , Home Alone and Home AloneLost in New York and for writing movies such as Gremlins and The Goonies .
Columbus was born in Spangler, Pennsylvania and raised in Champion, Ohio, the son of Mary Irene , a factory worker, and Alex Michael Columbus, an aluminum plant worker and coal miner. Columbus is of Italian and Czech descent. He graduated from John F. Kennedy High School in Warren, Ohio and went on to study at New York Universitys film school at the Tisch School of the Arts, where he was a schoolmate of writerdirector Charlie Kaufman and Alec Baldwin.
Source: Wikipedia