Fireball Tim Lawrence is a visionary artist, filmmaker, automotive expert, and community leader
He’s a very cool guy — the affable, personable kind who warmly engages a person in conversation, listens attentively, and shares interesting and memorable stories and ideas. Fireball Tim Lawrence wears many hats and he wears them all very well. Ask anyone who has worked with him and they praise him highly and comment about his creativity, tireless work ethic and leadership.
Fireball’s unwavering passion and dedication to Malibu
Lawrence is the executive producer of Michel Shane’s documentary “21 Miles in Malibu,” a passion project honoring Michel and Ellen Shane’s daughter, Emily, 13, who was senselessly killed on Pacific Coast Highway by an irresponsible criminal. The movie challenges policymakers and their constituents to focus on improving safety on PCH and other highly dangerous roads nationwide and worldwide.
“I’ve known Fireball since the inception of my documentary, where he became an integral part of the story,” Shane shared. “His unwavering passion and dedication shine through in everything he undertakes. Over the years, he has become a trusted friend and confidant. His authenticity and commitment to excellence has left an indelible mark on everything he does, including my life.”
Lawrence is the consummate car lover. He helped John Zambetti with Malibu’s Woody Parade for 14 years. He notes the event is “really more of a cruise than a parade,” and that it has become a beloved Malibu holiday tradition. For 10 years, Lawrence ran Wheels & Waves, a car show that provided opportunities for car aficionados and interested attendees to mix and mingle as they learned about interesting vehicles owned by ordinary citizens as well as by the likes of Jay Leno, Keanu Reeves, and Kevin Hart. After that endeavor, he coordinated the popular Malibu Cars & Coffee at Trancas Country Mart for 10 years, which he says, “was very successful because we did it the right way, showing primarily vintage cars.”
Community-oriented and always striving to create novel and impactful ways to share the arts in Malibu and beyond, Lawrence has spearheaded efforts to curate art exhibits at Malibu City Gallery at City Hall.
“I cannot say enough good things about Fireball Tim,” said Paul Grisanti, former Malibu mayor and city councilmember.“I am so proud to have appointed him to the Malibu Arts Commission, and he has made it into a very productive commission — he’s responsible for all the activity at the Malibu City Gallery and had unlimited energy to promote having a separate, standalone gallery. He has always been eager to volunteer for anything that he thinks might be helpful or that will make art shows better.”
Reflecting on the various exhibits he has helped to curate, Lawrence noted that the City Gallery affords a specialopportunity to encourage young and unknown artists.
“The City Gallery is literally the only gallery in the U.S. that doesn’t have to make money, which gave us free rein to create awareness for artists and allowed us to expand art within the community,” he noted. “The city was tremendously supportive of our efforts and we showcased art by Malibuites Dick Van Dyke and Jane Seymour as well as little-known artists.” Lawrence also humbly emphasized that former Malibu Arts
Commissioner Julia Holland’s assistance and creative inputs were highly instrumental in curating the exhibits at City Hall.
The Malibu Art Association has been greatly blessed by Lawrence’s contributions and his enthusiasm for sharing art in the community. He collaborated with the late Derek Schimming to offer art events at MaliBungalows that provided artists another outlet of showcasing their works locally and gave attendees wonderful viewing experiences.
As Sean, Lawrence’s stepson, was growing up in Malibu during the 1990s and early 2000s, Lawrence coached the youngster’s AYSO soccer team for seven years, taking the perspective that those experiences were not just about winning,but also about learning life skills such as working collaboratively, supporting one another, and ensuring that one has fun in competitive environments.
“Some of the kids I coached still call me to this day and some of them are very successful,” Lawrence shared. “I feel I had a little part in contributing to their development as good people.”
Although plans for establishing public exhibit spaces in Malibu may have to abide the post-fire rebuilding efforts, Lawrence noted that he advocates establishing a public space where locals and visitors can learn more about the history of Malibu, dating back to Chumash times.
“It would be great to have a Malibu Historical Society that offers insights into Malibu from its inception,” he suggested.“One appreciates his town much more when he understands what it’s experienced throughout its history.”
How it all began
Lawrence was born in Hollywood and was seemingly destined to be involved in the movie industry — his dad, writer Anthony Lawrence, had a record 3,500 published pieces go to the screen, including scripts for episodes of “Bonanza,” “Outer Limits,” “Hawaii Five-O,” and “Mod Squad.”
After graduating from the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, Lawrence enjoyed career stints at Walt Disney Imagineering and Universal Studios. He has served as a Hollywood concept artist for cars in film and television over the past few decades, garnering more than 400 movie credits, including “Gone in 60 Seconds,” “Jurassic Park,” “GI Joe,” and“Knight Rider.” He even designed the Batmobile for the 1989 “Batman” movie. He’s also created vehicles for more than a thousand commercials. Lawrence also acts and some of his most enjoyable gigs include appearing in Nintendo’s “Super Mario,” for which he costumed up as Yoshi and swam in the ocean as Super Mario, experiences he notes “were lots of fun!”
“At my core, I’m a concept artist in film and I create key frames for studios,” Lawrence explained. “I create vehicles, weapons, sets, and props — those are exercises in world-building. I created designs for Director David Twohy for the original ‘Pitch Black’ with Vin Diesel, and designed all the illustrations for ‘Jurassic Park.’”
A natural emcee, Lawrence is also known for hosting some of the biggest automotive shows for Discovery, TLC, and Speed. Ask him for details and he exuberantly responds, “The Mini Pursuit on Speed Channel’s ‘Street Tuner Challenge,’ Episode 1, enjoyed a billion views!”
How cool is that? It’s really cool, as are the more than 2,000 episodes of his “BEST OF SHOW,” on YouTube and the Auto Channel.
He’s the consummate artistic entrepreneur and has served as the design director for the now-shuttered Murphy Auto Museum. Most recently, both classic and custom car lovers have thoroughly enjoyed the Wheels and Waves events at the Channel Island Maritime Museum in Ventura every first Sunday of the month to closely inspect all the cool rides on show.
The Ventura show has been very well received.
“Fireball has been a catalyst for Wheels and Waves, a fun and unique experience at the Channel Islands Maritime Museum which brings the community together,” said Doug Riffenburgh, executive director of the museum.” He is a valued partner of the museum.”
The hotbed for automotive culture is in Orange County and from Huntington Beach north to San Luis Obispo and itsparticular focus is from Santa Monica to Santa Barbara, Lawrence explains. “Ours is an art-based car show, in which ordinary people spend years curating a one-off custom car,” he said. “People immersed in car culture thoroughly enjoy those cars. Importantly, such shows offer the best of everything. One can enjoy his interests and meet and mingle.”
When he’s not designing vehicles for films and commercials or curating car show gatherings, Lawrence, a gifted cartoonist, is creating entertaining coloring books. Check them out online at fireballtim.com or peruse them at Barnes & Noble, where one discovers his coloring books that focus on such interesting topics as classic cars, monster trucks, Camaros and Mustangs, Autopop TV cars, and even this writer’s personal favorite, the Hollywood Movie coloring book. Lawrence’s book titles also include “Vehicles of Syd Mead, Gene Winfield and Tony Dow.”
Enjoying the ride
Waxing philosophical for a moment, Lawrence opined, “In life, you can either sit on the side of the river, only wade in a little to get a feel for the vibe, but not really become part of it, or you can jump in and enjoy the ride.”
These days, he also focuses on his Automotive Pop Culture Art. Check those offerings out at fireballtimgarage.art, where you’ll find all sorts of merchandise from comic books to T-shirts to automotive pop art collectibles. His blog at fireballtim.com is also entertaining and informative.
Soon, readers can also enjoy Lawrence’s forthcoming “Best of Show” columns in Calabasas Style Magazine.