Julie Taymor Movies and Career Information

Julie Taymor (born December 15, 1952) is an American director of theater, opera and film. Taymor's work has received many accolades from critics, and she has earned two Tony Awards out of four nominations, the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Costume Design, an Emmy Award and an Academy Award nomination for Original Song. She is widely known for directing the stage musical, The Lion King, for which she became the first woman to win the Tony Award for directing a musical, in addition to a Tony Award for Original Costume Design. She was the director of the Broadway musical Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark but left in March 2011, following artistic differences with the producers. Taymor was born in Newton, Massachusetts, the daughter of Elizabeth (née Bernstein), a political science teacher, and Melvin Lester Taymor, a gynecologist, both of Jewish descent. Taymor's interest in theatre took root early in her life. At the age of seven, she was already drawing her sister into stagings of children's stories for her parents. By age nine, she was entranced by the Boston Children's Theatre and became involved with them. In high school, she became interested in international travel, and made