Cameron was born on Aug. 16, 1954 in Kapuskasing, Ontario, Canada to Philip, an electrical engineer, and Shirley, a painter. The family later crossed the border to live, first in Niagara Falls, NY, then later in Brea, CA. As a youngster, he was interested in astronomy and science fiction, even penning his own short stories. After boasting as a nine-year-old that he could make a better movie than “King Kong vs. Godzilla” (1962), Cameron began taking a deeper interest in film. Meanwhile, he developed an obsession for building rockets and airplanes from junk piles; skills that later translated into building models on set. A voracious reader, Cameron consumed books as a child, making him verbally and mentally precocious enough to skip a grade in school. But his most significant moment came when he saw Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey" (1968). Cameron reportedly saw the movie 10 times and was inspired to experiment with his father’s super-8 camera. After high school, he enrolled at California State University – Fullerton, where he studied physics for a year, before dropping out to marry a waitress, drive trucks and smoke pot. Despite his slip into a mundane blue collar life, Cameron remained obsessed with movies.

It was following a viewing of George Lucas' "Star Wars" (1977) that Cameron decided he should be making his own epics. He left his job – and his waitress wife, Sharon Williams – to move to Los Angeles and start working in the entertainment industry. Cameron made his first foray into filmmaking with “Xenogenesis” (1978), a 12-minute sci-fi short that proved his competence with special effects, while demonstrating a need for him to develop other filmmaking skills – namely story, character and dialogue. Because of “Xenogenesis,” however, Cameron landed a job in the model department of Roger Corman’s production company, New World Pictures. Corman’s low-budget film factory was the perfect place for Cameron to further develop his craft – he performed a variety of functions, rising from art director on “Battle Beyond the Stars” (1980) to production designer and second unit director on “Galaxy of Terror” (1981). He even directed his first film, “Piranha II: The Spawning” (1981). An unfortunate experience for Cameron, he suffered through working with a crew that spoke only Italian, as well as a slim-to-nothing budget.

If there was one positive result of the chaotic production, it was a nightmare Cameron had of a robot assassin from the future, which lead him to write his first screenplay, “The Terminator” (1984). He made friends with Corman’s head of marketing, Gale Anne Hurd, whom Cameron later married and convinced to buy the script for a buck – but on the condition that he direct the film. With a budget of around $6.5 million and boasting sleek compositions, expertly edited action sequences, and a career-making performance by heretofore bodybuilder Arnold Schwarzenegger, "The Terminator" was not just a critical and commercial triumph, but a seminal event in cinema that marked the dawn of a new era of action movies. Many storytelling devices that later became Cameron hallmarks were already present, including a strong plot, compelling characters – particularly the female lead – and a seriousness of purpose. His approach to the almost-mythical material was witty without being campy, while he never undermined the imagery and situations by trumpeting their allusions.

Early in his career, Cameron wrote films that others directed, including the script for “Rambo: First Blood II” (1985), a revisionist war fantasy that saw Vietnam vet John Rambo (Sylvester Stallone) released from federal prison and sent back to Southeast Asia to rescue a group of forgotten POWs. But he returned to the director’s chair for “Aliens” (1986), the sequel to the 1979 sci-fi/horror film directed by Ridley Scott. At the time Cameron was pushing to make the film, few people inside 20th Century Fox were interested in digging up those old bones – especially since it had been filmed to perfection the first time. But Cameron’s passion for the project – he felt the original was the best science fiction/horror movie ever made – helped turn opinions inside the studio around. Once he received the green light, Cameron started by fashioning a story around the only character to survive the first movie, Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver), turning her into a one-woman vigilante who takes on the alien monsters instead of merely reacting and trying to survive. By giving Ripley a child to look after in Newt (Carrie Henn), he also played up the maternal instincts of both Ripley, and, surprisingly, the Alien Queen herself, who was just as protective of her own offspring. He also changed the overall tone of the film – from suspense thriller to heart-pumping movie – giving fans of the genre the first believable female action hero. The end result was a box office smash that many considered superior to Scott’s original – to say nothing of it spawning one of the most famous movie lines in history, with Ripley’s snarling declaration to the Alien Queen: “Get away from her, you bitch!” The film also snared a Best Actress nod at the Academy Awards for Weaver, and took home two Oscars for Best Sound Effects Editing and Best Visual Effects.

With two great films that outperformed all box office expectations under his belt, Cameron seemed poised to ride his success into his fourth feature, “The Abyss” (1989), an aptly-named underwater thriller that saw the director throw good money after bad down a bottomless pit. “The Abyss” followed a team of civilian scuba divers – including Ed Harris and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio – tasked by the U.S. Navy to rescue a nuclear submarine at the bottom of the Caribbean. But a series of strange encounters underwater lead to the discovery of an alien species living in the deep ocean. During the shoot