Cameron was born to Shirley and Phillip Cameron on August 16, 1954, in Kapuskasing, Ontario.1)
He grew up in Chippawa, Ontario, but relocated to Brea, California, in 1971. In 1825, his ancestors emigrated from Balquhidder, Scotland.2)
He attended the Stamford Collegiate School in Niagara Falls, Ontario. After that, he attended Troy High School for secondary school before enrolling in Fullerton College in 1973, but dropping out in 1974.3)
He was a science fiction fan as a youngster and aspired to be one of Hollywood's most prolific filmmakers.4)
Do you know that before achieving success in movies, he worked as a truck driver, a writer, and so on?5)
After seeing the original Star Wars picture in 1977, he quit his truck driving job to pursue a career in movies.6)
He considered the prospect of fusing science and art, and wrote a 10-minute science-fiction script named Xenogenesis with his buddies. This 35 mm film assisted him in landing a position with New World Pictures.7)
His fortunes altered in 1984 when he created and directed “The Terminator,” a science fiction picture starring Arnold Schwarzenegger as a robot. The film was a critical and economic success.8)
During the filming of Piranha II: The Spawning, he became unwell and had a nightmare about an unstoppable robot, which inspired the Terminator.9)
Cameron wrote the majority of Terminator's screenplay in his automobile.10)
In 1981, he was engaged as a Special Effects Director on Piranha II: The Spawning, the sequel to Piranha. However, he took over as Director after Miller Drake (the original director) abandoned the project due to a creative disagreement with the producer, Ovidio Assonitis.11)
When he began work on a sequel to Ridley Scott's 1979 blockbuster Alien in 1986, the team was antagonistic to him. Despite this and other off-screen issues, the picture gained critical acclaim for its feminist concept and went on to be a box-office triumph. The film was nominated for two Academy Awards: Best Sound Effects Editing and Best Visual Effects.12)
The Abyss, a 1989 film, was inspired by a concept from his high school Biology class. The film was regarded one of the most costly pictures of the time (it was budgeted at $41 million).13)
He produced Titanic in 1997, and the rest is history. With 14 Academy Award nominations and 11 wins, this $200 million dollar picture became the first to make more than $1 billion.14)
In the production of James Cameron's 1997 film “Titanic,” a replica of the original ship's staircase was created. The replica was so accurate that when the movie set was flooded during filming, the staircase became dislodged in a manner that supports the theory that the original staircase may have floated out of the ship during the sinking of the Titanic in 1912. 15)
To make Titanic (1997 film) more realistic, he dived many times to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean and took video of the genuine Titanic ship underwater, which he then put into the finished film. During his dives, he penned the majority of the Titanic's dialogue.16)