Tim Burton Biography

Fast Facts

• His father was a minor-league baseball player, before retiring early due to an injury
• His mother once owned a cat-themed gift shop in Burbank called Cats Plus
• Attended California Institute of the Arts on a Disney animation scholarship
• John Lasseter, director of Toy Story, and Brad Bird, director of The Incredibles, were two of his classmates
• Did uncredited work on The Fox and the Hound and The Black Cauldron before convincing Disney to let him make his career-launching 1984 live-action short, Frankenweenie
• Often said that the relationship between Ed Wood and Bela Lugosi in his film Ed Wood was akin to his own relationship with Vincent Price, whom he worked with in Edward Scissorhands
• Released The Art of Tim Burton, a compilation of more than 1000 of his illustrations, in 2009