The Caroline Thompson Collection contains drafts of screenwriter Thompson’s produced and unproduced feature film screenplays as well as development materials, outlines, treatments, correspondence and photographs relating to each script.

Born April 23, 1956 to an attorney and a teacher, Caroline Thompson was raised in Washington D.C. She graduated from Amherst College with a degree in English and Classic Literature in 1978 and moved to California in 1979. In 1983, she published a novel, First Born (Coward, McCann). She adapted the book with and for the director, Penelope Spheeris. Though the movie was never made, Caroline found she loved writing screenplays and focused her energy in that direction. On reading First Born, director Tim Burton approached Thompson to collaborate. Thompson’s first produced feature film credit was 1990’s Edward Scissorhands, which she wrote after developing the story idea with Burton. Subsequent produced credits include film adaptations of The Addams Family (1991), Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey (1993) and The Secret Garden (1993). Thompson collaborated with Tim Burton again in 1993, writing the screenplay for the stop-motion animated film, The Nightmare Before Christmas. Profoundly influenced by animals in her storytelling, Thompson directed Black Beauty in 1994 from her own adapted screenplay. She followed this up writing and directing Buddy (1997) and Snow White: The Fairest in the Land (TV movie, Hallmark, 2001). In 2005, she wrote the screenplay for another stop-motion animated feature, Corpse Bride. In 2009, she wrote the screenplay for the science-fiction adventure film, City of Ember, based on the novel by Jean DuPrau and she co-wrote the 2018 film Welcome to Marwen with Robert Zemeckis. In 2011, she received the Austin Film Festival’s Distinguished Screenwriter Award, the first woman to be so honored, and was awarded a Hugo in 1991 for Edward Scissorhands. She lives near Santa Barbara.

3 linear feet

The responsibility to secure copyright and publication permission rests with the researcher.

Available by appointment only.