Celebrity Biographies
Stephen hillenburg
“No one can change a person, but someone can be the reason for another person to change.” The inspiring and positive phrases of SpongeBob have earned him a place among the favorite characters of the new generations. Its creator, Stephen Hillenburg, died on November 26, 2018, at the age of 57, as a result of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a disease that he announced he had in March 2017. “His characters and the world he has created are They will remain as a reminder of some values such as optimism, friendship and the unlimited power of imagination, ”explains Nickelodeon, the channel that broadcast the series, in a statement.
Born on August 21, 1961 in Lawton, a city located in Oklahoma, Stephen McDannell Hillenburg graduated in studies of exploitation of marine resources at Humboldt State University of California. Since 1984 he has worked as a biologist and professor of marine biology at the Orange County Ocean Institute. During that time he made drawings of underwater creatures that would be the germ of his best-known characters.
But in 1987 he decided to pursue his second great passion, animation, directing the shorts The Green Beret (1991) and Wormholes (1992). The second was awarded at various festivals, and attracted the attention of Joe Murray, creator of Rocko’s Modern Life , on Nickelodeon, who would recruit him for it as a writer and creative director, while studying at the Institute of the Arts in California a Master funded by the Grace Kelly Foundation .
At the end of Murray’s fiction, he offers the channel his project starring his iconic character, who at first he drew as a natural sponge, but later decided to give it a square shape, because that way he had more charisma. After the pilot chapter, “Help Wanted”, the company gave the green light to the SpongeBob series , which premiered on May 1, 1999, gradually achieving enormous success around the world.
In 2004, the adaptation in feature film format, SpongeBob: The Movie , would hit theaters , followed in 2015 by SpongeBob: a hero out of water , which showed the characters converted into digital versions in the final stretch. They also appeared in various video games, and in 2017 in a Broadway musical. Until the last moment of his life, Stephen Hillenburg has been working on his creations, most notably a third theatrical film, It’s a Wonderful Sponge , due out in 2020.