BIOGRAPHY

The top director of his generation, as well as one of the most notoriously demanding, James Cameron has made a mark on Hollywood with a string of mega-budget, mega-grossing films remarkable for their marriage of technical wizardry with human sentiment. The son of an electrical engineer, Cameron was born in Kapuskasing, Ontario, Canada on August 16th, 1954. He was fascinated with movies from a young age and would later site Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey as an early influence. Thanks to his father's job, Cameron and his family moved to southern California in 1971, and the director went on to study physics at California State University. Following his graduation, Cameron, who had already decided he wanted to pursue a film career, took a job as a truck driver to support his early screenwriting efforts. He received his first break at the hands of legendary Roger Corman, who hired Cameron on as a model maker at his Roger Corman Studios. There the director worked on his first movie, serving as art director of 1980's Battle Beyond the Stars. Thanks to a combination of skill and dedication, Cameron quickly moved up through the ranks, and the following year was appointed second unit director and production designer for the schlock-fest Galaxy of Terror. The same year, he made his inauspicious directorial and screenwriting debut with Piranha II: The Spawning. Legend has it that he had

such a bad time filming the movie, shot entirely in Italy, that it gave him nightmares--the substance of which would inspire his breakthrough film, the 1984 classic The Terminator. A grim tale of a futuristic war between humankind and man-made machines, The Terminator was a huge success, giving Cameron both fame and power, along with stardom for Arnold Schwarzenegger, who would appear in numerous Cameron movies. His next film as director was Aliens, a film that would propel him into the big Hollywood-style films. The 1986 film, like its 1979 predecessor, was a critical and commerical success, and Cameron followed it in 1989 with another exploration of human alien interaction in The Abyss. More noteworthy than the film's mixed reception were the stories about the process of making it. Tales of emotionally traumitized actors, an exceedingly demanding director, and often unbearable filming conditions abounded: some crew members even made t-shirts that read, "Life's Abyss and Then You Dive." However, although the director's reputation may have suffered a bit, the film garnered him further acclaim, winning an Oscar for Best Visual Effects. And, as a large portion of the planet was to find out that eight years later, it was not the last time he would make a movie that took place in the water. Cameron next turned to writing and producing, working on 1991's Point Break, which was directed by then-wife Kathryn Bigelow (he had previously been married to producer Gale Anne Hurd, with whom he collaborated on numerous projects). The same year, he wrote, produced and directed Terminator 2: Judgement Day and enjoyed further acclaim. The movie made an asteroid-sized splash at the box office, and Cameron was hailed for its

revolutionary special effects. His next directorial effort, True Lies, was another big budget effort, costing more than $100 million; despite a promising opening weekend, it was not as great a sucess as many had predicted it would be. In addition to directing, Cameron acted as the film's producer and screenwriter, and cast favored collaborator Schwarzenegger in the lead role. After divorcing Bigelow in 1995 and taking up with Terminator star Linda Hamilton, Cameron decided to take a break from making films about big men and bigger guns. Instead, he decided to make a movie about a big boat and a bigger piece of ice. The result was 1997's Titanic. The film was plagued from the beginning by a budget of exceptional proportions (originally budgeted at $125 million, it eventually cost at least $200 million, with the director forfeiting much of his salary

and gross percentage points to finance it); by on-set mishaps, such as food being laced with PCP by an anonymous prankster; and by the difficulty of filming the eventual Titanic wreck on the ocean floor. Yet it proved an unqualified success. A love story combined with remarkable special effects, the film drew a cross-section of viewers, lead by teenage girls; in addition to becoming the highest-grossing movie of all time, taking in over $600 million in the U.S. alone, it received a record-tying fourteen Oscar nominations, eventually winning eleven. Since winning a Best Picture and Director Oscar at the 1998 Academy Awards, not much has been seen of Cameron. He divorced wife Linda Hamitlon and hooked up with Titanic actress Suzy Amis and is currently at work on more film projects. As of late, he has expressed no interest in returning for a Terminator 3 (even despite Schwarzenegger's involvement), helming the much-talked about Planet of the Apes remake or directing a live-action Spider-Man film, for which he had once written a screenplay treatment for. Nevertheless, Cameron is still "the king of the world" and whatever he chooses as his next project is almost guarenteed to be visual eye candy for moviegoers across the world. (A majority of this biography was taken from Yahoo! Movies. Click here to view it.)

FILMOGRAPHY

TRIVIA

TRUE LIES 2 (2005) GHOSTS OF THE ABYSS (2003) SOLARIS (2002) EXPEDITION: BISMARCK (2002) TITANIC (1997) T2-3D: BATTLE ACROSS TIME (1996) STRANGE DAYS (1995) TRUE LIES (1994) TERMINATOR 2: JUDGEMENT DAY (1991) POINT BREAK (1991) THE ABYSS (1989) ALIENS (1986) RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD PART II (1985) THE TERMINATOR (1984) PIRANHA II: THE SPAWNING (1981)

HEIGHT: 6'2" SPOUSE: Suzy Amis (2000 -- Present); Linda Hamilton (1997 -- 1999, divorced); Kathryn Bigelow (1989 -- 1991, divorced); Gale Anne Hurd (1985 -- 1989, divorced); Sharon Williams (1974 -- 1985, divorced). Daughter, with Hamilton, Josephine Archer Cameron (born February 15th, 1993). MISCELLANEOUS WORK: Wrote and directed short feature Xenogenesis (1978); Art Director for Curtains (1995); Visual Effects for Apollo 13 (1995, uncredited) and Escape from New York (1981); Design consultant on Andriod (1982); Helped write Alien Nation (1988, uncredited); Received special thanks credit for Traveller (1997); Appeared as himself in The Muse (1999); is executive producer and writer (episode "Pilot") for TV series Dark Angel (2000). - Frequently casts Arnold Schwarzenegger, Michael Biehn, Jenette Goldstein, Lance Henriksen and Bill Paxton. - Likes to show close-ups shots of feet or wheels, often trampling things [feet]

SALARY: $115,000,000 for Titanic - First director to film both a $100 million (True Lies) and a $200 million (Titanic) movie. - One of the founders of visual effects company "Digital Domain"; his production company is called "Lightstorm Entertainment.