Background

Tim Burton was born on 25 August 1958 in Burbank, California, United States. He is the son of Jean Burton (née Erickson) and William "Bill" Burton.

Education

Tim Burton attended Providencia Elementary School. Later he went to Burbank High School where played on the water polo team at Burbank High. As a child Burton was an introspective person and found pleasure in painting, drawing and watching movies.

After graduating from Burbank High School, Burton entered the California Institute of the Arts to study character animation. As a student at CalArts, Burton made the shorts Stalk of the Celery Monster and King and Octopus.

Career

Tim Burton started his career as an apprentice animator at Walt Disney Studios. He worked as an animator, storyboard artist, graphic designer, art director and concept artist on films such as The Fox and the Hound, Tron, and The Black Cauldron. During his time at Disney, he embarked on his solo career and made a short film titled Vincent which was showcased at the Chicago Film Festival. Burton's next live-action short film, Frankenweenie, was released in 1984. However, his stay at the studio was short-lived due to the creative differences that he had with some of the executives there.

After the success of Tim Burton's first two short films Paul Reubens chose Burton to direct the cinematic spin-off of his popular character Pee-wee Herman. The film was titled Pee-wee's Big Adventure and it was made on a budget of $8 million and grossed more than $40 million at the North American box office. However, many of the scripts that were offered to him after this were essentially just spin-offs of the film, and Burton wanted to do something new. For three years, he made no more films, until he was presented with the script for Beetlejuice. The script was wild and wasn't really about anything, but was filled with such artistic and quirky opportunities, Burton couldn't say no. After that he turned to more mainstream fare with the big-budget Batman. Later Burton was given the green light to make his next film, any kind of film he wanted. That film was Edward Scissorhands, one of his most emotional, esteemed and artistic films to date. His next film was Batman Returns, and was darker and quirkier than the first one, and, while by no means a financial flop, many people felt somewhat disappointed by it. While working on Batman Returns, he also produced the popular The Nightmare Before Christmas, directed by former fellow Disney Animator Henry Selick.

In 1994, Tim Burton came up with two more films, Cabin Boy and Ed Wood. Both the films were panned by the audience and were commercial failures. The only saving grace was the critics’ appreciation for Ed Wood. His next film was Mars Attacks! that had much more vibrant colors than his other films. Despite being directed by Burton and featuring all-star actors including Jack Nicholson, Glenn Close, Pierce Brosnan and Michael J. Fox, it received mediocre reviews and wasn't immensely popular at the box office, either. Burton returned to his darker and more artistic form with the film Sleepy Hollow, starring Johnny Depp, Christina Ricci and Casper Van Dien. The film was praised for its art direction and was financially successful. His next film was Planet of the Apes, a remake of the classic of the same name. In 2003, Burton directed Big Fish, based on the novel Big Fish: A Novel of Mythic Proportions by Daniel Wallace. In 2005, he came up with Charlie and the Chocolate Factory that also was a box office success.

In 2007, Tim Burton directed Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. He produced an adult computer-animated science fiction film titled "9" in 2009. Both the films were widely appreciated and went on to receive several nominations. One year later Burton directed Alice in Wonderland, a special-effects-enhanced adaptation of the Lewis Carroll story. He followed this up with a film Dark Shadows. Later he served as the co-producer of the film Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter which released in 2012. The film was based on Seth Grahame-Smith’s novel of the same name. It opened to mixed response from the public. In 2014, he co-produced and directed a biographical drama film titled Big Eyes that was nominated at the British Academy Film Awards under the Best Production Design category. In 2016, Burton directed a fantasy film titled Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children. The film was a commercial success, earning $296.5 million at the box office. The same year, he also produced Alice Through the Looking Glass, a sequel to his 2010 film Alice in Wonderland. In 2019, Burton directed the fantasy adventure film Dumbo which premiered on March 11, 2019, in Los Angeles. The film was a huge box office success, earning $353.3 million against a budget of $170 million.

Achievements

• 

  Tim Burton is an American film director, film producer, writer, artist and animator, who is known for his gothic fantasy and horror films such as Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Sleepy Hollow, Dark Shadows, and Frankenweenie.
  
  Tim Burton was honored with the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement Award at the 64th Venice International Film Festival in 2007. In 2008 he received the Scream Immortal Award for his unique interpretation of horror and fantasy. Burton received the Emmy Award in 1990. In 2008, he was awarded the Golden Globe Award for Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. Burton also won the Saturn Award and the Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2010, he was awarded the Order of the Arts and Letters by the Culture Minister of France.

Works

More photos

• book

  • The Art of Tim Burton

    (The Art of Tim Burton is the definitive compilation of fo...)

    2009
  • The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy & Other Stories

    (From breathtaking stop-action animation to bittersweet mo...)

    1997
  • The Napkin Art of Tim Burton: Things You Think About in a Bar 2015

• movie

  • Tim Burton's Corpse Bride

    (Tim Burton presents a stop-motion animation of a young ma...)

  • Alice in Wonderland

    (Alice, now 19 years old, follows a rabbit in a blue coat ...)

    2010
  • Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

    (Take an unforgettable, uniquely magical journey through d...)

    2005
  • Dark Shadows

    (After being turned into a vampire by a jilted lover, Barn...)

    2012
  • Big Eyes

    (In the late 1950s and early '60s, artist Walter Keane (Ch...)

    2014
  • Beetlejuice

    (Emmy and Golden Globe-nominee Michael Keaton brings the t...)

    1988
  • Dumbo

    (Struggling circus owner Max Medici enlists a former star ...)

    2019
  • Star Kid

    (After a meteor lands in a junkyard, a shy 7th grade stude...)

    1997
  • Edward Scissorhands

    (An uncommonly gentle young man, who happens to have sciss...)

    1990
  • Mars Attacks!

    (An army of aliens from Mars visit Earth and meet the pres...)

    1996
  • Big Fish

    (Will Bloom returns home to care for his dying father, who...)

    2003
  • Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children

    (A young boy named Jake discovers a house full of children...)

    2016
  • Planet Of The Apes

    (A space detour lands Leo, an astronaut, on a planet where...)

    2001
  • Sleepy Hollow

    (Master storyteller Tim Burton weaves an eerie, enchanting...)

    1999
  • The Nightmare Before Christmas

    (Jack Skellington, a being from Halloween Town, finds Chri...)

    1993
  • Frankenweenie

    (Viktor invites trouble when he revives his dead pet dog S...)

    2012
  • Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street 2007

Religion

Tim Burton was raised in a Christian household, he admits that it never felt as though these religious teachings were never to be taken to seriously, they weren't something to be excited about.

Politics

Tim Burton doesn't talk too much about his politics, so it’s tough to know what he thinks about particular issues. However, he joins many of his Hollywood colleagues in support of the Democratic party. Burton even helped throw an Alice In Wonderland-themed Halloween party at the White House.

Views

Quotations: "One person's crazyness is another person's reality."

"I don't know what it was, maybe the movie theaters in my immediate surrounding neighbourhood in Burbank, but I never saw what would be considered A movies."

"Everything in this room is edible. Even I'm edible. But, that would be called canibalism. It is looked down upon in most societies."

"I am not a big technology person. I don't go on the Internet really much at all. Drawing is like a zen thing; it's private, which in this day and age is harder to come by."

"I have a problem when people say something's real or not real, or normal or abnormal. The meaning of those words for me is very personal and subjective. I've always been confused and never had a clearcut understanding of the meaning of those kinds of words."

"I've always been misrepresented. You know, I could dress in a clown costume and laugh with the happy people but they'd still say I'm a dark personality."

Personality

Entrepreneurial and progressive, Tim Burton is ever-striving, heading for the top, and enjoying an enterprising, ambitious and determined personality to do things well, and an unyielding dedication to his plan until the goals are achieved. Tim Burton is known for the weird, wacky and unusual. Some may say he’s a creative genius. Others think he’s nothing short of strange.

Quotes from others about the person

• Winona Ryder: "I was very lucky because Tim Burton really gave me a career. I don't think Hollywood would've known what to do with me. If I hadn't done 'Beetlejuice,' I think I would've just gone back to my school."
  
  Helena Bonham Carter: "Tim also has enough confidence so that it always looks like a Tim Burton film, but it really is collaborative. You're allowed to do it your way but of course he's always going to choose his way."
  
  Christopher Lee: "I've worked with Tim Burton five times, and it's just like being part of a family; life doesn't get much better than that."
  
  Johnny Depp: "How many chances to you get to make a musical about a serial killer? The minute Tim Burton approached me, I was in."

Interests

• Writers

  Edgar Allan Poe

• Sport & Clubs

  Tim played water polo and swam for Burbank High School in California.

Connections

Tim Burton was married to Lena Gieseke. Their marriage ended in 1991 after four years after that he lived with a model and actress Lisa Marie from 1992 to 2001.

Later Burton developed a romantic relationship with English actress Helena Bonham Carter. They have two children: a son, William Raymond, named after his and Bonham Carter's fathers, born in 2003; and a daughter, Nell, born in 2007. Burton and Bonham Carter broke up in 2014.

Father:

Bill Burton

Mother:

Jean Burton

ex-partner:

Lisa Marie Presley

ex-wife:

Lena Gieseke

ex-partner:

Helena Bonham Carter

Son:

Billy Raymond

Daughter:

Nell

Brother:

Daniel Burton

Friend:

Johnny Depp

References

• Tim Burton: An Unauthorized Biography of the Filmmaker This is the first full-length biography of the visionary Hollywood filmmaker Tim Burton, director of Batman, Batman Returns, Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands, Peewee's Big Adventure, Tim Burton's The Nightmare before Christmas, Ed Wood, Mars Attacks!, and Sleepy Hollow.
  1999
• Tim Burton: The Life and Films of a Visionary Director
  2000
• The Works of Tim Burton: Margins to Mainstream Tim Burton has had a massive impact on twentieth and twenty-first century culture through his films, art, and writings. This book examines how his aesthetics, influences, and themes reflect the shifting social expectations in American culture by tracing his Burton's move from a peripheral figure in the 1980s to the center of Hollywood filmmaking.
  2013
• Burton on Burton A revised edition of the only book to explore the unique brilliance of director Tim Burton's work, including a new chapter on the making of Sleepy Hollow. Still only in his thirties, Tim Burton has established himself in the past fifteen years as one of the great visionaries of film.
  2006
• Tim Burton: The Monster and the Crowd Tim Burton’s films are well known for being complex and emotionally powerful. In this book, Helena Bassil-Morozow employs Jungian and post-Jungian concepts of unconscious mental processes along with film semiotics, analysis of narrative devices and cinematic history, to explore the reworking of myth and fairytale in Burton’s gothic fantasy world.
  2010
• Tim Burton Tim Burton has reinvented Hollywood genre filmmaking over the past three decades. With a visual style inspired by the aesthetics of animation and silent comedy, Burton's work melds the exotic, the horrific and the comic, manipulating expressionism and fantasy with the skill of a graphic novelist.
  2009