Tim Burton

He was next involved romantically with actress Helena Bonham Carter. The two have been blessed with a son and daughter

Tim Burton was born to Jean Burton and Bill Burton in the city of Burbank. His mother was the owner of a cat-themed gift shop, while his father, a former minor league baseball player, worked for the Burbank Park and Recreation Department.

He attained his preliminary education from Burbank High School. An average student, he did not have much interest in the regular curriculum and instead had an affinity towards painting, drawing and watching films.

A prodigious child, he took to filmmaking since his pre-teen years. He often indulged in shooting short films using the crude stop motion animation techniques. His oldest surviving film is The Island of Doctor Agnor, which was made when he was 13.

Completing his education from Burbank High School, he enrolled at the California Institute of Arts to take up a course in character animation. It was while studying here that he made films like, ‘Stalk of the celery Monster’ and ‘King and Octopus’. He graduated from the institute in 1979.

He started off his career by working as an apprentice animator at the Walt Disney Studios. However, his stay at the studio was short lived due to the creative differences that he had.

During his time at Disney, he embarked on his solo career and made a short film, Vincent, which was showcased at the Chicago Film Festival. The film met with huge positive response and fetched him an award too.

He followed this by coming up with his first live-action production ‘Hansel and Gretel’. In 1984, he released his next live-action short film, ‘Frankenweenie’. The year also marked his last term of service with the Disney.

The success of his first two short films led him to direct the cinematic sequel of his popular character Pee-wee Herman. The film was titled, ‘Pee-wee's Big Adventure’. It also witnessed the very first collaboration of him and songwriter Danny Elfman which propelled for years.

‘Pee-wee's Big Adventure’ was highly successful and provided him an opportunity to direct several more films during the decade including, ‘Bettlejuice’ and ‘Batman’. Both the films were huge hits and established his reputation as a top-notch director. ‘Batman’ became one of the biggest box office hits of all time.

In 2007, he was honoured with the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement Award at the 64th Venice International Film Festival.

In 2008 he was honoured with the Scream Immortal Award, for his unique interpretation of horror and fantasy.

He served as the President of the Jury for the 63rd annual Cannes Film Festival, held from May 12 to 24, 2010 in Cannes, France.

In 2010, he received the insignia of Chevalier of Arts and Letters from then-Minister of Culture Fr�d�ric Mitterrand.

In his almost four decades long career, he has won many prestigious awards including the Emmy Award, Golden Globe Awards, National Board of Review Awards and Producers Guild of America Awards.