BIOGRAPHY:

James Cameron was born in Kapuskasing, Ontario, Canada, on August 16, 1954. He moved to the USA in 1971. The son of an engineer, he majored in physics at California State University but, after graduating, drove a truck to support his screen-writing ambition. He landed his first professional film job as art director, miniature-set builder, and process-projection supervisor on Roger Corman's Battle Beyond the Stars (1980) and debuted as a director with Piranha Part Two: The Spawning (1981) the following year.

In 1984, he wrote and directed The Terminator (1984), a futuristic action-thriller starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Michael Biehn, and Linda Hamilton (I). It was a huge success. After this came a string of successful science-fiction action films such as Aliens (1986) and Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991). Cameron is now one of the most sought-after directors in Hollywood. He was formerly married to producer Gale Anne Hurd, who produced several of his films. He married Kathryn Bigelow in 1989.

TRIVIA:

First director to film both a $100 million (_Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)_ (qv)) and a $200 million (_Titanic (1997)_ (qv)) movie.
A magazine article written about him in the 1980s described how he had three desks set up in his house. At one desk, he was writing the script to _The Terminator (1984)_ (qv), on another, he was finishing the script to _Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985)_ (qv) and on the third, he was writing _Aliens (1986)_ (qv).
(September 2000) Cameron is in talks with RKK Energia and MirCorp to pay his way on board the Mir space station (or the ISS, should Mir be deorbited). He has been given the medical green light, and has already ridden aboard the Ilushin-76 jet used to train cosmonauts for space missions.
Security is provided by 'Gavin De Becker' (qv), author of "The Gift of Fear."
He and 'Suzy Amis' (qv) are owners of Childspot!, an early childhood center in Wichita, Kansas which is operated by Suzy's sister, Rebecca Amis.
His practice of testing his DPs by darkening the film originated on _Aliens (1986)_ (qv). Cameron wanted to use a particular type of film stock, but cinematographer 'Dick Bush (I)' (qv) ignored him and used a different type. The end result being that the footage shot ended up being unusably dark. After Bush was fired due to an unrelated incident and 'Adrian Biddle' (qv) took over, Cameron found some of the film in a storage cupboard and had the camera operators use it instead of the film Biddle had told them to use. Biddle noticed what was going on after the first take, and compensated with extra lighting, hoping to hide his "mistake" from Cameron, who owned up at the end of the day. Cameron later did the same to 'Mikael Salomon' (qv) on _The Abyss (1989)_ (qv) and to 'Russell Carpenter (I)' (qv) on _True Lies (1994)_ (qv).
Member of the American Cinema Editors (ACE).
He is a huge Japanese anime fan, and the releasing studios often uses his opinion about the film on the DVD and VHS covers.

Related sites for this celeb
» IMDB
» TVGuide
» Zap2it.com