Some of his crew took to wearing T-shirts that read "You Can't Scare Me. I work for James Cameron." Some of his friends refer to his bad temper as his Evil Twin "Mij". Several actors on The Abyss had horror stories; Ed Harris and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio both refused to work with him again after that. Mastrantonio because Cameron insisted on shooting retakes of a painful CPR scene until the crew "ran out of film stock" (supposedly just as he was becoming satisfied), and Harris because Cameron literally almost drowned him. Which resulted in the one and only time an actor has ever actually punched him and Harris won't even talk about his experience. During the filming of True Lies, he apparently refused to allow any of the crew to take bathroom breaks until a shot was, ummm, in the can. Titanic, the film that cemented Cameron's reputation as Hollywood's biggest Jerkass, apart from terrorizing the film's two lead actors (Kate Winslet suffered bruises so impressive that the makeup artists took photos to use for reference later and he reputedly nicknamed her "Kate Weighs-a-lot."), driving it insanely over budget and schedule and having to deal with cast members who came down sick from a shitload of hours spent in cold water. During the filming of Titanic, a crew member put PCP in the wrap party soup as revenge (this didn't work out so well, as dozens of crew members were hospitalized as a result).
. Probably surrounded by too many yes folks. I can't deny the brilliance of his (distant) past work though. T2 and Aliens are amongst the handful of films I've given 5 stars to 
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) SCC. If the Writers Guild Strike hadn't happened how different things would've been.