Tim Burton

Timothy Walter Burton was born on August 25, 1958, and developed an early passion for drawing, painting, and fantasy films. He studied at the California Institute of the Arts, where he trained in character animation and began making short films that displayed his macabre, whimsical sensibility. After CalArts, Burton joined Walt Disney Productions as an animator in 1979, where he worked on a variety of studio projects while creating personal shorts such as Vincent and Frankenweenie. Burton made his feature directing debut with Pee-wee’s Big Adventure, which launched his career in Hollywood. He achieved mainstream and critical recognition with Beetlejuice and Edward Scissorhands, and broadened his reach with big-studio projects such as Batman and Batman Returns. Over subsequent decades, Burton has alternated between darker, idiosyncratic tales and large commercial studio films, directing titles including Ed Wood, Mars Attacks!, Sleepy Hollow, Big Fish, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Corpse Bride, Sweeney Todd, Planet of the Apes, and Alice in Wonderland.