Guillermo del Toro

Born in Guadalajara, Mexico, and raised by his staunchly Catholic grandmother, del Toro was already involved in filmmaking by his teens. A fan of such horror masters as "James Whale", "Mario Bava", "George A. Romero", "Alfred Hitchcock", and the work of Britain's Hammer Films, del Toro learned about makeup and effects from "The Exorcist"'s "Dick Smith" as well as studying screenwriting and making Super-8, 16 mm, and 35 mm short films. Though he executive-produced his first feature, Doña Herlinda and Her Son (1986), at age 21, del Toro initially spent almost a decade as a makeup supervisor, forming his own company, Necropia, in the early '80s. He still found time to... Full Biography