Tim Burton

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Lore & Background

Timothy Walter Burton was born in Burbank, California, on August 25, 1958, the son of Jean, who later owned a cat-themed gift shop, and William 'Bill' Burton, a former minor league baseball player who worked for the Burbank Parks and Recreation Department. As a preteen, Burton made short films in his back yard using crude stop motion animation or shooting on 8 mm film without sound; one of his oldest known films, The Island of Doctor Agor, is an adaptation of H. G. Wells' novel The Island of Doctor Moreau which he made when he was 13. He attended Providencia Elementary School, Luther Burbank Middle School, and Burbank High School, where he played on the water polo team. After graduating in 1976, he studied character animation at the California Institute of the Arts until 1979, making the short films Stalk of the Celery Monster and King and Octopus. His future work was heavily influenced by Dr. Seuss, Roald Dahl, silent gothic horror films, Universal Monsters films such as Frankenstein, Hammer Horror films starring Christopher Lee, and the horror films of Vincent Price. He also credited Ray Harryhausen's work for getting him interested in stop-motion animation at a young age.

Reader's Guide

Burton's career began at Walt Disney Productions, where he worked as an animator, storyboard artist, graphic designer, art director, and concept artist on films such as The Fox and the Hound (1981), Tron (1982), and The Black Cauldron (1985), though his concept art never made it into the finished films. While at Disney in 1982, he made his first short, Vincent, a six-minute black-and-white stop motion film narrated by Vincent Price. After Disney fired him following his 1984 short Frankenweenie, actor Paul Reubens chose Burton to direct Pee-wee's Big Adventure (1985), which grossed more than $40 million on an $8 million budget. Burton gained wider prominence with Beetlejuice (1988), a supernatural comedy horror that won the Academy Award for Best Makeup, and Edward Scissorhands (1990). He directed Batman (1989), which grossed over $250 million in the U.S. and $400 million worldwide, and Batman Returns (1992). He also produced The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993), based on a poem he wrote. His frequent collaboration with composer Danny Elfman, who scored all but three of his films, became a hallmark of his work. Burton directed several episodes of the Netflix series Wednesday (2022–present), for which he was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing for a Comedy Series.

Did You Know?

• Burton made his first short film, The Island of Doctor Agor, at age 13, adapting H. G. Wells' The Island of Doctor Moreau.
• He was fired from Disney after making Frankenweenie (1984), which the studio deemed too dark and scary for children.
• Burton's short film Vincent (1982) was narrated by Vincent Price, one of his childhood heroes.
• He played on the water polo team at Burbank High School.
• Danny Elfman has scored all but three of Burton's directed films: Ed Wood, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, and Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children.