Nick Park / Biography

Nick Park was educated at Sheffield Hallam University (UK), formerly Sheffield City Polytechnic. This is where he started making the first Wallace and Gromit film.
In 1986, he animated the Peter Gabriel Music video "Sledgehammer," which is considered to be one of the very best music videos ever made.
He made international news when he lost the figures of Wallace and Gromit in New York City. The clay models were left in the back of a cab by mistake when Park visited New York on a promotion tour for the release of Wallace and Gromit in A Close Shave (1995). The original motorcycle and sidecar with Wallace and Gromit on-board were priceless and it would cost at least US$20,000 to replace them. Park appealed through the New York media for their return and this soon became a national and international news story; in the UK it was front page news and covered extensively on radio and television. They were returned 36 hours later when the cab driver read the news in the New York Post and decided to check his trunk. He was offered a reward of US$500 but refused to take it.
In a radio interview, he said that Wallace's references to Wensleydale cheese in the film Wallace and Gromit in A Close Shave (1995) unintentionally saved a small British cheese maker from bankruptcy. Interest in the cheese was sparked by the film, and one of the few makers of that cheese suddenly found itself with numerous requests for the cheese, saving it from financial ruin.
In a radio interview, he stated that he based his character Wallace, albeit quite loosely, after his own father, who was an incurable tinkerer. One of the most unusual items he built, completely from scratch, was a small trailer the family would take on trips to the beach. Nick Park described it as "a living room on wheels," complete with wallpapered interior walls and wooden furniture bolted to the floor.
Supporter of Preston North End football club.
Two of the birds in Chicken Run (2000), Ginger and Rocky, were the names of pet chickens he had as a boy.
25 November 1997) Awarded CBE by HRH Queen Elizabeth II.
Awarded honorary Doctor of Arts degree by Bath University, England, UK. [30 October 1996]