Born on Aug. 25, 1958 in Burbank, CA, Burton grew up a lonely and isolated child who quickly grew disenchanted with his homogenized suburban surroundings. Burton’s withdrawal from his home life – which included growing detached from his family, particularly his father – led him to spend time daydreaming, watching B-movies and pouring through issues of Famous Monsters of Filmland. Eventually, his inability to communicate – alongside his fascination with the macabre side of Hollywood – sparked an interest in drawing and animation. When he was 10 years old, Burton went to live with his grandmother until he reached high school, much to the dismay of his parents. In that cauldron of simmering adolescence, Burton only grew more withdrawn, cementing his feelings as perennial outsider, a theme that later permeated his finest work. Though not a good student, his artistic talent nonetheless earned him a scholarship from Disney Animation to learn the craft at the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, CA.
Drawing inspiration from Vincent Price movies, German expressionism and Gothic horror movies from the 1930s, Burton went to work for the Mouse House as an apprentice animator, though he ultimately proved to be ill-equipped to do things the Disney way. After working as an animator on “The Fox and the Hen” (1981), Burton was given $60,000 by Disney to create anything he wished, which he used to make the six-minute animated short, "Vincent" (1982), a wryly amusing film portraying the dual life of a tortured, but seemingly normal suburban child who lives in a fantasy world of Gothic horror while imagining that he is Vincent Price (who incidentally served as narrator). The autobiographical character was a prototype for the misunderstood, sympathetic outsider at the center of most of Burton’s subsequent films. He followed up with the partially live-action "Frankenweenie" (1984), an inventive twist on the "Frankenstein" story that depicted a young boy who brings his dog back to life by jump-starting him with a car battery. Considered too outré for a Disney product, the short failed to receive a proper release until 1992 when it finally became available on video and on The Disney Channel.
A private showing of “Frankenweenie” for Paul Reubens landed Burton his first feature directing assignment on the superlatively silly "Pee-Wee's Big Adventure" (1985). Though his first two films had been in black and white, the director adjusted readily, using primary colors to create Pee Wee's surreal, cartoon-like world without completely abandoning the dark side revealed in Pee Wee's nightmares. Though most critics savaged the goofy film, "Pee-Wee's Big Adventure" found a sizable audience and a surprised industry duly took immediate notice of Burton’s talents. Building on the live-action cartoon style of his debut, Burton's next feature, "Beetlejuice" (1988), employed a fantastic array of outstanding special effects to tell the campy ghost story of a newly married couple (Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis) who die in a car accident and enlist the help of an obnoxious spirit guide (Michael Keaton) to drive out the new owners of their house. “Beetlejuice” became another surprise sleeper hit for Burton – after only two films, he suddenly found himself to be an intriguing choice to direct Hollywood blockbusters.
His first was "Batman" (1989), a project which allowed him – together with Oscar-winning set designer Anton Furst – to return to his beloved long shadows, jagged angles and distorted perspective for the imagery of the appropriately named Gotham City. The first in a series of immensely successful films about the infamous Caped Crusader, “Batman” vaulted Burton to the top tier of directors, thanks in large part to the then record-breaking take at the box office and his validation in casting Michael Keaton as Bruce Wayne – despite many an initial outcry. Burton's even darker "Batman Returns" (1992) made it evident, however, that a coherent narrative was an afterthought when compared with the director's remarkable visual style. For the first installment, that capability overcame the clunky story and somewhat leaden action sequences to bring in more than $400 million worldwide and a cool billion in merchandising. Unfortunately, the second “Batman” suffered a lackluster performance at the box office, particularly considering its sizeable budget. His decision to pass the reins to Joel Schumacher for "Batman Forever" (1995) probably brought a sigh of relief from studio execs, ecstatic to be free from Burton’s grim vision. Little did they realize what havoc Schumacher would wreak on their beloved franchise.
In between the two “Batman" movies, Burton helmed "Edward Scissorhands" (1990), an unique fable about a man-made boy (Johnny Depp) whose creator (Vincent Price) dies before attaching hands to his body. Visually, the pastel plasticity of suburbia contrasted sharply with the Gothic angles of the scientist's mountaintop home, just as that day-glo community's superficial welcome vanished in the face of mob frenzy when Edward's differences became too threatening for the close-knit society. As the title character, Depp was extremely effective in his nearly mute, wide-eyed performance, and Burton's mentor Price provided a distinct emotional context in his cameo as the inventor. Despite his success, Burton remained a misunderstood outsider, while "Edward Scissorhands," a moderate hit in commercial terms, went on to become the movie that remained closest to his heart. Burton returned to animation as producer and creator of "Tim Burton's 'The Nightmare Before Christmas'" (1993), the first full length stop-motion animated film produced by Disney. Burton first came up with the idea while employed by the studio in the early 1980s, though it spent the next decade languishing in development hell. He finally had the project green-lit when he turned it over the reigns to old friend and animator Henry Selick. Wildly imaginative in its excursion to the macabre, this twisted cousin to cuddly Disney classics only confirmed Burton as a commercial wunderkind and made the film, itself, required holiday viewing – either at Christmas or Halloween.
With his next feature, “Ed Wood” (1994), Burton finally began to earn the respect of critics who previous savaged his work, particularly the writing. His decision to shoot in black and white, however, caused Columbia to pull out, leaving the field clear for Disney. Starring Johnny Depp as "the world's worst director," Burton's first period piece also featured Martin Landau in an astonishing, Academy Award-winning turn as an aged and drug-addicted Bela Lugosi – the actor who had portrayed Count Dracula in early 1930s Universal films. While smaller in scope than his last three outings, "Ed Wood" was also the first Burton movie grounded in a truthful – albeit bizarre – historical reality, unlike the internally consistent but fictional worlds of "Scissorhands" and the "Batman" movies. The cinematic love letter to Hollywood's Poverty Row, “Ed Wood” – like "Scissorhands” – was an extremely personal film, and many critics cited parallels between Wood's relationship with Lugosi to Burton's with Price. Despite its vivid recreation of time and place, it unfortunately did not appeal to mass tastes, bringing his string of box office successes to an end. Nonetheless, Burton’s passion and love for filmmaking – much the same as Ed Wood’s own feelings – was evident in every frame.
Burton turned his attention next to "Mars Attacks!" (1996), a big budget special effects bonanza that spoofed the grade-Z sci-fi thrillers of the 1950s and 1960s. Boasting an all-star cast – including Annette Bening, Glenn Close, Michael J Fox and Jack Nicholson in a dual role – the film combined live-action with superb animation to tell its overly self-satisfied, ultimately one-note tale of an alien invasion of earth. Fabulous production design could not carry the day, however, proving that Burton's unquestioned visual genius needed to be a strong supporting character to a strong narrative. Its box office failure was due in part to the success of the similarly themed blockbuster, "Independence Day" (1996), released some five months earlier. Though not branding the wunderkind an overnight pariah, certainly studios were more cautious whether or not Burton’s delightfully demented vision would continue to sell.
Burton rebounded with "Sleepy Hollow" (1999), a loosely based adaptation of Washington Irving's famous story, starring Depp – who was fast becoming Burton’s onscreen male muse – as discredited professor Ichabod Crane, who’s exiled to Sleepy Hollow where he confronts the local myth of the headless horseman. While "Sleepy Hollow" successfully grafted Burton's unique sensibilities onto a well-known tale, he was far less successful with the next established property he tackled, an overdone, over-the-top remake of "Planet of the Apes" (2001) that failed to capitalize on either the principal appeal of the source material or Burton's established cinematic style. Starring Mark Wahlberg as an American pilot stranded in an upside-down world ruled by apes, the film of course featured Burton’s trademark stunning design, but thanks to a poorly-conceived story, it proved to be a major bump in his career. Burton took a well-received step forward with " Big Fish" (2003), the tale of a disgruntled young man (Billy Crudup) and his dying father (Albert Finney) trying to reconcile their relationship, despite the father's overblown tales of his youth (played in flashback by Ewan McGregor). Perhaps inspired by his own family difficulties, “Big Fish” provided Burton with a heartfelt tale upon which to graft his visionary quirks.
For Burton, it was on to another even more fanciful and outrageous project – this time with his frequent collaborator Depp as the magical candymaker Willie Wonka for Burton's version of author Roald Dahl's "Charlie & the Chocolate Factory" (2005). Burton's interpretation hewed closer to the book and was predictably darker. But he also imbued it with his uniquely imaginative touch, making what The Hollywood Reporter called "a film about kids and for kids that has not lost touch with what it is like to actually be a kid." That same year, Burton conceived, produced and co-directed another stop-motion animated opus for youngsters, "Tim Burton's Corpse Bride," the story of a young Victorian man (voiced by Depp) who is whisked away to the underworld to wed a mysterious undead woman (voiced by Burton's frequent collaborator and new girlfriend, Helena Bonham Carter), but seeks to escape and reunite with his true love.
Once again back in top form, Burton directed perhaps his best film to date, “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street” (2007), a big screen adaptation of Stephen Sondheim’s Tony Award-winning horror musical; itself an adaptation of Christopher Bond’s 1973 play. Burton again teamed with Johnny Depp, who played the titular character, an embittered ex-convict wrongly imprisoned by a lecherous judge who returns to his hometown to open a barber shop where he cuts the hair – among other things – of those who wronged him – and are never heard from again. Most critics raved about “Sweeney Todd,” citing its macabre humor and unique genre twist as being perfect for Burton’s dark sensibilities. Burton also received rare award recognition, earning a Golden Globe nomination for Best Director.