Short answers, pulled from the story.
Guillermo del Toro Gómez was born on the 9th of October 1964 in Guadalajara, Jalisco. His father Federico won a lottery worth $6 million in 1969 which allowed the family to live among books and exotic animals.
Vandals burglarized the studio one night and destroyed the puppets and sets built over three years for the stop-motion sci-fi feature called Omnivore. This event ended his project and led him to switch to a live-action film called Cronos that released in 1993.
The Devil's Backbone and Pan's Labyrinth stand among his most critically acclaimed works as two films set in Spain under Francisco Franco's authoritarian rule. Pan's Labyrinth premiered at the 2006 Toronto International Film Festival where it received a standing ovation.
Del Toro won the Academy Award for Best Director for this work and the film went on to win multiple accolades including the Academy Award for Best Picture. He has received three Academy Awards, three BAFTA Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, a Daytime Emmy Award, and a Golden Lion.
Federico del Toro Torres was kidnapped in Guadalajara around 1997 and the family had to pay twice the amount originally asked for as ransom totaling $1 million. Seventy-two days after Federico was kidnapped the ransom was paid and he was released but the culprits were never apprehended nor was the money ever recovered.