Caroline Thompson (born April 23, 1956) is an American novelist, screenwriter, film director, and producer. She wrote the screenplays for the
Tim Burton
Timothy Walter Burton (born August 25, 1958) is an American filmmaker and producer. Known for popularizing Goth subculture, Goth culture in the American film industry, Burton is famous for his Gothic film, gothic horror and dark fantasy films. ...
-directed films ''
Edward Scissorhands'' and ''
Corpse Bride'' and the Burton-produced ''
The Nightmare Before Christmas''. She co-wrote the story for ''Edward Scissorhands'' and co-adapted a new stage version of the film with director and choreographer
Matthew Bourne. Thompson also adapted the screenplay for the film version of ''
Wicked Lovely'', a bestselling fantasy series, in 2011, but the production was put into
turnaround. She directed ''
Black Beauty'' (1994); ''
Buddy'' (1997), which she also wrote; and the television film ''
Snow White: The Fairest of Them All'' (2001), also as producer and co-writer.
Personal life
Thompson was born in Washington, D.C., the daughter of Bettie Marshall (née Warner), a teacher, and Thomas Carlton Thompson, Jr., a lawyer. She received her early education in Washington. She later moved to
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. It is a suburb in the Greater Boston metropolitan area, located directly across the Charles River from Boston. The city's population as of the 2020 United States census, ...
to attend
Radcliffe College
Radcliffe College was a Women's colleges in the United States, women's Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that was founded in 1879. In 1999, it was fully incorporated into Harvard Colle ...
, and eventually graduated from
Amherst College
Amherst College ( ) is a Private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Amherst, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1821 as an attempt to relocate Williams College by its then-president Zepha ...
in 1978 with a degree in English and classic literature.
[Biography]
''The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
''. Her first marriage was to Henry Bromell, a fellow novelist and screenwriter. She later married Steve Nicolaides, a film and TV producer.
Career
Thompson moved to Los Angeles, supporting herself as a freelance book reviewer and writer. In 1983, she published a novel ''First Born'' which director
Penelope Spheeris chose to adapt into a film, and from whom she started learning scriptwriting while writing the drafts of the film's screenplay. Though the movie was never made, the project inspired her to pursue a career as a screenwriter. Tim Burton was impressed with the novel, which was "about a monster fetus". He felt ''First Born'' had the same psychological elements he wanted to showcase in ''
Edward Scissorhands'', and hired her to write its screenplay as a
spec script.
Her other works include ''
Snow White: The Fairest of Them All'', ''
The Secret Garden
''The Secret Garden'' is a children's novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett first published in book form in 1911, after serialisation in ''The American Magazine'' (November 1910 – August 1911). Set in England, it is seen as a classic of English c ...
'', ''
Buddy'', ''
Black Beauty,'' ''
Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey,'' and ''
The Addams Family''. Though she is best known for having written the screenplays for ''Edward Scissorhands'' and ''The Nightmare Before Christmas'', she has had more than a dozen movies made, including ''City of Ember'' and ''The Addams Family''.
From the above, she directed ''
Black Beauty'' (1994) as her directorial debut, followed by ''Snow White'' in 2001 for TV and ''Buddy''. She was the producer for ''Snow White'' and the associate producer for ''The Secret Garden'' and ''Edward Scissorhands''.
Her screenplay for ''
Wicked Lovely'', intended to be directed by
Mary Harron, was in
turnaround in 2011.
Thompson was the first woman to be presented with the ''Distinguished Screenwriter Award'' at the 2011
Austin Film Festival.
Filmography
As herself
* ''
Prop Culture'' (2020) episode: "Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas"
* ''
The Holiday Movies That Made Us '' (2020) episode: "Nightmare Before Christmas"
Bibliography
* ''First born'', Published by Coward-McCann, 1983. .
* ''Edward Scissorhands'', by Thompson & Tim Burton. Published by distributed by Cinestore, 1990.
* ''The Secret Garden'', Adapted by Thompson. Published by s.n., 1991.
* ''The Addams Family: A Novelization'', by Elizabeth Faucher, Thompson, & Larry Wilson. Published by Scholastic Inc., 1991. .
* ''Tim Burton's Nightmare Before Christmas: A Novel'', by Daphne Skinner, Thompson, Michael McDowell, & Tim Burton. Published by Puffin Books, 1994. .
* ''Snow White'', by Thompson & Julie Hickson. Published by s.n, 2000.
* ''Tim Burton's Nightmare Before Christmas: The Film, the Art, the Vision'', by Frank Thompson, Tim Burton. Published by Disney Editions, 2002. . ''Caroline Thompson – Page 179''.
*
References
External links
*
Caroline Thompson Video Interview
{{DEFAULTSORT:Thompson, Caroline
1956 births
20th-century American novelists
20th-century American women writers
21st-century American novelists
21st-century American women writers
American women novelists
American women screenwriters
Amherst College alumni
Hugo Award–winning writers
Living people
Radcliffe College alumni
Screenwriters from Washington, D.C.