Before he became a film director, James Cameron worked as a school bus driver, and later as a truck driver. He decided to quit his driving job to enter the film industry after watching Star Wars in 1977.
In 1981, a 27-year-old Cameron was working as a director on Piranha II, when he was fired for failing to get a close-up of the lead actress. He then contracted food poisoning and during his illness had a nightmare about a robot sent from the future to kill him. That fever dream became the idea for The Terminator.
Cameron wanted to direct The Terminator so badly that he sold the rights to the film to producer Gale Anne Hurd for just $1, on the condition that he be allowed to direct it. While waiting for Arnold Schwarzenegger to become available for the role, Cameron busied himself by writing Aliens and Rambo: First Blood Part II.
James Cameron has been married five times:
Sharon Williams (1978-1984):
Gale Anne Hurd (1985-1989):
Kathryn Bigelow (1989-1991):
Linda Hamilton (1991-1999):
Suzy Amis (2000-present):
When asked about his five marriages, Cameron replied: "Being attracted to strong independent women has the downside that they're strong independent women — they inherently don't need you!"
After being faced with budget problems during the filming of Titanic, Cameron offered to give up his salary and share of future profits. The studio declined his offer — they believed it was an empty gesture, as they were convinced the film would make no profit. Titanic went on to gross over $2 billion worldwide and win 11 Academy Awards.
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| Cameron in 2012. By Angela George |
James Cameron has completed 33 submersible dives to the wreck of the Titanic, which lies 3,810 metres (12,500 feet) below the surface of the Atlantic Ocean. By his own calculation, he has spent more time at the Titanic wreck than Captain Smith spent on the ship itself.
Cameron has said that his primary motivation for making the 1997 film Titanic was not the love story — it was to get someone to fund his deep-sea exploration. "I wanted to dive the shipwreck," he said, "and I used the movie as a way to do it." He referred to the Titanic as "the Mount Everest of shipwrecks."
Using footage from his dives, Cameron went on to make the documentary Ghosts of the Abyss (2003), which took audiences inside the Titanic's interior using revolutionary 3-D camera technology he developed himself. He has also led expeditions to the wreck of the German battleship Bismarck and filmed hydrothermal vent sites along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge.
On March 26, 2012, Cameron made history by piloting a submersible to the bottom of the Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench — the deepest known point on Earth — reaching a depth of 10,908 metres (35,787 feet) in the Pacific Ocean. He was the first person ever to make the journey solo, and only the third person in history to reach that depth at all. The previous crewed descent had been in 1960.
The vessel, called the Deepsea Challenger, was a 24-foot craft shaped like a vertical torpedo that Cameron's team spent seven years designing and building. It descended at around 500 feet per minute, and at the bottom Cameron faced water pressure equivalent to 8 tons pressing on every square inch. Several pieces of equipment failed under the immense pressure.
Cameron spent around three hours exploring the ocean floor, collecting sediment samples and filming with 3-D cameras. The expedition discovered 68 new bacteria species, along with small invertebrates and jellyfish. The dive was carried out in partnership with the National Geographic Society, for whom Cameron is an Explorer-in-Residence.
Cameron has said: "I think the explorer's job is to be at the remote edge of human experience, then come back and tell that story."
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