Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

Timothy Walter “Tim” Burton (born August 25, 1958) is a Golden Globe Award-winning American film director, producer, writer and artist. He is famed for his dark and quirky films, such as Edward Scissorhands and The Nightmare Before Christmas, which he co-wrote and produced. He is also famous for directing blockbusters including Batman and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Since directing his first feature film Pee-wee’s Big Adventure in 1985, he has gone on to direct and produce numerous films, many of which have received Academy Award nominations and wins. He frequently works with close friend Johnny Depp, musician Danny Elfman and partner Helena Bonham Carter. His upcoming projects include the animated film 9 and Alice in Wonderland, the Disney retelling of Lewis Carroll’s book.

Burton was born in Burbank, California, the first of two sons to Bill Burton and Jean Erickson. His year of birth is sometimes mistakenly given as 1960. Burton described his childhood self as quirky, self-absorbed and highly imaginative. As he grew older, he found home life and school somewhat difficult, often escaping the reality by watching horror and low budget films, to which he would later pay tribute in his biography of Ed Wood. Tim grew up on Evergreen Street, very near the Valhalla Cemetery in Burbank. Tim has spoken in interviews about the “weirdness” of growing up near a cemetery. He attended Providencia Elementary School in Burbank, Luther Burbank Jr. High, and later Burbank High School, which his father Bill had also attended. His father Bill worked for many years in the Recreation Department for the City of Burbank. Another film figure of importance in Burton’s childhood is Vincent Price, whose films would deeply influence the upcoming director’s career. He was inspired early on by Ray Harryhausen’s stop-motion films.

After high school, he won a Disney scholarship to attend the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, California. He studied at the Character Animation program for three years. Burton’s first job in animation was working as a cell painter on Ralph Bakshi’s The Lord of the Rings.¹² Burton was then hired by the Walt Disney Studios as an animator apprentice. Burton’s job was to draw for The Fox and the Hound but he was dissatisfied with the artistic direction of the movie. He later commented on the refusal of Disney to use his design for The Fox and the Hound because his designs made the characters, in opposition to Disney’s desires, “look like roadkill”. Burton was not happy during his Disney period, but it was then that he wrote and drew the poem and illustrations that would be the basis for The Nightmare Before Christmas.

In 1982, Burton made his first short, Vincent, a 5:52 min. black and white stop motion film based around a poem written by Burton, and depicting a young boy who fantasizes that he is his (and Burton’s) screen idol Vincent Price, with Price himself providing narration. The film was produced by Burton’s girlfriend at the time, who was an executive at Disney. During production, Burton maintained an office at The Disney Studios. The two co-authored a screenplay titled “True Love”. Once the film was shown at the Chicago Film Festival and released, alongside the teen drama Tex, for two weeks in one Los Angeles cinema, Burton abruptly ended his relationship with his producer-partner-girlfriend. This was followed by Burton’s first live-action production Hansel and Gretel, a Japanese themed adaptation of Grimm’s tale for The Disney Channel, which climaxes in a kung-fu fight between Hansel and Gretel and the witch. Having aired once at 10:30pm on Halloween 1983 and promptly shelved, it is next to impossible to locate, which contributes to the rumor that this project does not exist. Next was the live-action short Frankenweenie, starring Barret Oliver, Daniel Stern and Shelley Duvall (an early supporter of Burton’s work).

Although Burton’s work had yet to see wide release, he began to attract the attention of the film industry. Producer Griffin Dunne approached Burton to direct After Hours (1985), a comedy about a bored word processor who survives a crazy night in SoHo that was passed over by Martin Scorsese. However, when financing for The Last Temptation of Christ fell through, Burton bowed out of the project out of respect for Scorsese.

Burton was married to a German-born artist for four years, whom he left for Lisa Marie, a model with whom he lived and was “engaged” to 1992 through 2001. Lisa Marie had parts in all of his films while they were a couple, most notably Ed Wood and Mars Attacks! Burton currently lives with Helena Bonham Carter, whom he met while filming Planet of the Apes – in which Lisa Marie had a small part, whereas Bonham Carter had a starring role. Burton abruptly left Lisa Marie for Bonham Carter and they now have a son, Billy Ray Burton, born October 4, 2003, and a daughter, Nell Burton, born December 15, 2007.¹⁴¹⁵ Burton and Bonham Carter live in London.

Close friend Johnny Depp is a godfather of Burton’s son. In Burton on Burton, Depp wrote the intro, stating, “What more can I say about him? He is a brother, a friend, my godson’s father. He is a unique and brave soul, someone that I would go to the ends of the earth for, and I know, full and well, he would do the same for me.”

Burton often casts certain actors more than once in his films. Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Christopher Lee, Deep Roy, Michael Gough, Jeffrey Jones and Michael Keaton are amongst his most frequent of collaborators. In addition to this, to date all but two of Burton’s films have had music scored by Danny Elfman. —Wikipedia