Tim William Burton (born August 25th, 1958) is a Golden Globe award-winning American filmmaker. 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, most notably in his own books, and the picture book of The Nightmare Before Christmas. Burton described his childhood self as quirky, self-absorbed and highly imaginative. As a teen growing up in Burbank, he staged an axe murder with his brother to scare the neighbors, prompting one to call the police, and this is how he got a nickname, Axe Wound. 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. 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 his celebrated The Nightmare Before Christmas. .
