Early life

Minkoff was born in Palo Alto, California. He studied at Palo Alto High School and graduated from California Institute of the Arts in the early 1980s in the Character Animation department. While he was working his way through CalArts, he was hired by Walt Disney Animation Studios in 1983 as an in-between artist for The Black Cauldron (1985). He was then a supervising animator for The Great Mouse Detective (1986), before being a character designer for The Brave Little Toaster (1987). He also wrote the song "Good Company" for Oliver & Company (1988), before becoming a character animator for The Little Mermaid (1989). He then became a director for two Roger Rabbit shorts called Tummy Trouble (1989) and Roller Coaster Rabbit (1990) and a pre-production script development for Beauty and the Beast (1991). He also directed a Mickey Mouse short, which was shown at Disney-MGM Studios called Mickey's Audition (1992).

Career

Minkoff got his big break when he directed the Walt Disney Animation Studios feature film The Lion King (1994) alongside Roger Allers. Since then, he also directed Stuart Little (1999) Stuart Little 2 (2002), which were a mix of live action and computer animation, and then some fully live action movies like The Haunted Mansion (2003), The Forbidden Kingdom (2008) and Flypaper (2011).

He also participates as a member of the jury for the NYICFF, a local New York City Film Festival dedicated to screening films for children between the ages of 3 and 18.

He directed DreamWorks Animation's computer-animated film Mr. Peabody & Sherman. He is also attached to direct the fantasy action adventure Chinese Odyssey. As of 2014, he is producing Blazing Samurai, an animated family film inspired by Blazing Saddles and scheduled for a 2017 release.

Personal life

Minkoff married Crystal Kung on September 29, 2007. They met in 2003 at a party in Minkoff's office. Kung is a 76th-generation descendant of Confucius, and has a brother, Jeffrey Kung, a Chinese singer and radio VJ.

In 2012, Minkoff and his wife welcomed a son.

Filmography

Director

• Tummy Trouble (1989)
• Roller Coaster Rabbit (1990)
• The Lion King (1994)
• Stuart Little (1999)
• Stuart Little 2 (2002)
• The Haunted Mansion (2003)
• The Forbidden Kingdom (2008)
• Flypaper (2011)
• Mr. Peabody & Sherman (2014)

Producer

• Trail Mix-Up (1993)
• Blazing Samurai (2017)

Animator

• The Black Cauldron (1985)
• The Great Mouse Detective (1986)
• Sport Goofy in Soccermania (1987)
• The Brave Little Toaster (1987)
• The Little Mermaid (1989)

[ Source: Wikipedia ]