The Legendary Stan Winston Has Died!

[Hurmoth]

The Legendary Stan Winston Has Died!

The legendary visual effects maestro Stan Winston passed away last night. The news hasn't hit the mainstream sources yet, but Quint over at AICN confirmed it with a close friend of Winston. He was only 62 years old. Winston won the Oscar four times for his work on Aliens, Terminator 2, Jurassic Park, and AI and most recently worked on the brilliant visual effects in Iron Man. Winston was easily one of the greatest special effects visionaries to ever work in Hollywood and has created some of the most memorable special effects in cinematic history. This is truly a great loss and an incredibly sad day for Hollywood.

His cinematography is vast. Winston is an icon himself who has created countless cinematic legends. In addition to the four films that he won Oscars for, Winston worked on The Thing, Predator, The Monster Squad, Congo, Galaxy Quest, Big Fish, and Constantine. He was currently working with McG on the upcoming Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins. The cause of death hasn't been revealed, however details on this story are currently developing. We will update this story once we confirm more details. You can see much of his fantastic work over at his studio's official website: StanWinstonStudio.com.

This is truly a great tragedy that will affect all of Hollywood. He will certainly be remembered!

:cry: OMG! He will certainly be missed. I loved his work. I'm completely heart broken at this news.

Here's a list of Winston's previous work:

• Heartbeeps (1980)
  
• The Thing (1982)
  
• Friday the 13th Part III (1983)
  
• The Terminator (1984)
  
• Aliens (1986)
  
• The Monster Squad (1987)
  
• Predator (1987)
  
• Leviathan (1988)
  
• Pumpkinhead (1989)
  
• Edward Scissorhands (1990)
  
• Predator 2 (1990)
  
• Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
  
• Batman Returns (1992)
  
• Jurassic Park (1993)
  
• Interview with the Vampire (1994)
  
• Congo (1995)
  
• The Island of Doctor Moreau (1996)
  
• T2 3-D: Battle Across Time (1996)
  
• Ghosts (1997)
  
• The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997)
  
• Small Soldiers (1998)
  
• Lake Placid (1999)
  
• End of Days (1999)
  
• Pearl Harbor (2001)
  
• A.I. (2001)
  
• Jurassic Park III (2001)
  
• When Darkness Falls (2002)
  
• Big Fish (2003)
  
• Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003)
  
• Wrong Turn (2003)
  
• Constantine (2005)
  
• Iron Man (2008)
  

Upcoming Works:

• Black Mountain (2008)
  
• Avatar (2009)
  
• Jurassic Park IV (2009)
  
• Terminator 4 (2009)
  
• The Suffering (TBA)
  

Edited June 16, 2008 by Hurmoth

[Nerve]

R.I.P Stan Winston. :(

[AgEnTsMiTh]

What a heart break!

The man was pure brilliance.

[+Gary7 Subscriber²]

Gee only 62. R.I.P.

[FlishFun Veteran]

Age is a terrible thing! He will really be missed (truly awesome work).

R.I.P.

[Rappy Veteran]

R.I.P :(

[Hurmoth]

IGN has officially confirmed this news with a representative at The Gersh Agency. An official press release is going to be released some time this afternoon.

I'm shocked, at this point I haven't seen any major news outlet announce this yet. The only thing on a major news outlet is a blog post on the LA Times' website: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/entertainm...winston-de.html. They are reporting he suffered from multiple myeloma, which is a form of cancer.

[Richard Hammond]

Oh wow what a shame, i remember seeing him in the Jurassic Park Documentary he was definately a pioneer and did some awesome stuff with ILM.

Rest in peace.

[RadishTM Veteran]

He rocked, RIP :(

Radish?

[-Hiroshi-]

RIP You legendary man....

[Pygmy_Hippo]

Very very sad news.

RIP Stan and thanks for all the fun.

[Green_Eye]

R.I.P :(

You Sir will be missed :cry:

[duritz]

well he definitely lived an awesome life. he worked on some of the most iconic modern movies of today.

[Wannes]

Rest in piece. Your work was awesome. :(

[Cara Veteran]

A legend in his industry... RIP.

[Sky Black]

I'll miss him :( - Always a treat to see him in a making of feature

[Hurmoth]

I always loved watching or reading an interview with him because he always through out tidbits that he shouldn't have about the production of a film and always had an amusing quote or anecdote.

[Razorwing]

A Special Fx Legend. RIP.

[+shift. MVC]

Rest in peace. Condolences to his family.

[Hurmoth]

Great article from TIME about Stan's life and rise to SPFX fame...

Stan Winston: Monster Magician

A T. Rex roars into view in Jurassic Park. An army of Schwarzeneggerian cyborgs clang after Linda Hamilton in The Terminator. The mommy monster of Aliens slavers at Sigourney Weaver. The Predator?a gigantic, dreadlocked Creature from the Black Lagoon?stomps through a South American jungle.

When a child screams in delicious fright as these image leap from the screen and into the brain's trauma center, any parent will whisper a consoling "They're not real, honey." They are, though?as real as any nightmares the dream machine can conjure. But a machine didn't dream up, design, build, or give festering life to these creatures. Stan Winston did.

Winston, who died Sunday at 62, after a seven-year bout with multiple myeloma, probably gave more kids more sleepless nights than anyone in Hollywood. Yet he wasn't out simply to scare the audience; he wanted to create complex, often sympathetic figures? to enlighten us about the dark side. "I don't do special effects," he once said. "I do characters." His Edward Scissorhands character, elaborated on from director Tim Burton's sketches, puts the poignancy right in that white, sweet, baleful, soulful face. The Penguin, played by Danny De Vito in Burton's Batman Returns, is an ugly, beaky thing that no kid could mistake for having happy feet; yet beneath his comic rage there's an abandoned child's ache, palpable and, thanks to Winston, visible.

In remarks about his vocation, Winston always emphasized the artistic impulse over the tinkerer's gift. "I am not a technician," he said. "I am techno-ignorant." (Here, he must have been kidding to make a point, since he was in charge of the Stan Winston Studio, which constructed these elaborate, often revolutionary mechanisms in addition to devising them.) "But I love creating characters and telling wonderful stories." Another hint to Winston's humanity: his insistence on paying at least as much attention to his family as to his job. He leaves behind his wife Karen, their two children and four grandchiHOW TO MAKE A MONSTERSTER

Stan Winston was of that small, brilliant, edifyingly demented breed of special-effects makeup men. Not visual effects, you understand: these folks don't sit at computers and play with pixels, a technique that requires an actor to stand in front of a green screen and mime fear. They are old-fashioned craftsmen, using spirit gum and other medieval (and modern) applications to devise prostheses so horrid, so hand-made, they'd scare anyone on the set. In a tradition stretching back to silent-film star Lon Chaney, the SPFX makeup men, in essence, build scary masks. They make horror visible by sculpting it.

Before Winston, there were two masters of horror makeup who names are so ordinary, they could be scrawled in a motel register by a teen seeking furtive sex: Jack Pierce and Dick Smith. Pierce, during his time at Universal Pictures in the 30s and 40s, created the studio's entire monster menagerie: Boris Karloff's Frankenstein and the Mummy, Bela Lugosi's Dracula, Lon Chaney Jr.'s Wolf Man, Claude Rains' Phantom of the Opera.

Smith, whose career spanned a vigorous half-century and who's still around at 86, gave Dustin Hoffman his simian, centenarian face in Little Big Man, puffed Brando's cheeks in The Godfatherand turned 13-year-old Linda Blair into a puking, head-swiveling demon in The Exorcist. Imagine any of these films without Pierce's or Smith's contributions, and your mindscreen plays a much more ordinary movie. No sleepless night for the kids, either.

Winston's most notable contemporary has been Rick Baker. Born in 1950, he rose to prominence with director John Landis, lending his antic artistry to that lycanthropic masterpiece An American Werewolf in London, to Michael Jackson's moonwalking zombie in the Thriller video and to just about any movie where Eddie Murphy looks like someone else: a Caucasian alterkocker in Coming to America, a morbidly obese mama in Norbit and, of course, all of the Klumps.

Baker is the one FX makeup artist to snag more Oscars than Winston did: six, to his four. But he's had competition from his one-time apprentice Rob Bottin, who designed John Carpenter's threatening Thing, the original RoboCop and the twisted uggies in Total Recall. And a tip of the skull to Tom Savini, "the Godfather of Gore" who's made every known body part, and a few that should have remained unknown, drip, crack or explode in his six fright films with George A. RFROM GARGOYLES TO IRON MEN MEN

Botttin and Savini had FX makeup in their blood from childhood. They were of the generation inspired by the trail-blazing work of Winston and his tiny band of predecessors. Winston came to Hollywood in 1968, long before the lovingly detailed rendering of the grotesque had become fashionable. Back then, most films were photographs of people talking, and action movies were photographs of people fighting. Young Stan arrived in town hoping for work as an actor. With no jobs coming, he joined the Makeup department at Disney. The studio had its live-action and animated films, but it had also pioneered audio-animatronics in its theme parks and at the 1964-65 New York World's Fair. It might seem a long leap from the international singing dolls of "It's a Small World" t0 the troop of steely Terminators, but the physics are the same.

By 1974 he had won two Emmys: for the gremlin-like creatures in the TV movie Gargoyles and (shared with Baker) for the old-age makeup worn by Cicely Tyson in The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman. Moving into feature films, he forged productive relationships with directors as imaginative as he: Burton, Steven Spielberg for Jurassic Park and A.I. and James Cameron on Aliens and The Terminator, T2 and the Universal Studios park attraction, T2: 3D, an amazing blend of film, FX and live action that Winston co-directed.

Sometimes he built on the design work of others. He adapted H.R. Giger's creature from Alien for the mommy monster in the sequel, and developed Bottin's FX of the wormy, slightly Strom Thurmonish invader in The Thing. (Note to the budding creators of creatures: When in doubt, give them an extra set of teeth?the better to eat you with, my dear.) Winston's ickiest godchildren would face off in Alien vs. Predator and a 2007 sequel, which he sat out. That stuff was mostly computer-generated, anyway.

By the time of Jurassic Park, in 1993, the seven-ton T. Rex he built was only part of the visual trickery. The rest was the breakthrough digital sorcery supplied by George Lucas' Industrial Light & Magic. Since then, fans have wondered apprehensively, is Winston's an obsolescent art? (In his last days he was transforming his studio to emphasize the digital.) Will makeup effects soon seem as anachronistic as the papier-mache monster suits worn in the grade-Z horror movies off the 50s?

No, as long as directors find symbiotic inspiration in minds as fertile as Winston's. (At his death he was working on Cameron's Avatar.) His finest achievements in his last decade, as he tried battling cancer to a draw, were the robot Teddy in A.I.?another melancholy mandroid in the Scissorhands style?and, just this year, the suit that Robert Downey Jr.'s Tony Stark fashions in Iron Man. Stark's basement laboratory might have been Winston's workshop; the dedication and ingenuity Stark lavished on his jet-propelled armor were worthy of Stan the Man himself.

On the digg.com website this afternoon, as news of Winston's early death spread through the blogosphere, two fans bade him farewell in a way the creator of the Terminator would have appreciated. "Hasta La Vista," wrote one. Another added, "He'll be back."

[+Nik Louch Subscriber²]

Aw man - he was a legend - his work speaks for itself. RIP

[Scirwode]

He will be missed :( .

Scirwode

[Vortex566]

Tragic loss :( RIP

[kazuyette]

A real Legend of film making and SFX/VFX is gone ...

/me is sad

[Hurmoth]

A nice tribute from ShockTillYouDrop...

On Sunday, June 15th, the FX world and cinephiles lost pioneer Stan Winston to a seven-year battle with multiple myeloma, a cancer of the plasma cells. At 62 he leaves behind a legacy of iconic horror, sci-fi and fantasy figures each making an indelible impression on the viewer they play to, whether it's fear (Pumpkinhead), wonder (Small Soldiers), a rush of excitement (Jurassic Park) or a touch of sadness (Edward Scissorhands).

In the spring of 1987, I remember my father picking me up from school and hustling me over to the nearest newsstand. A monster lover himself, he told me he had to show me something really cool. He picks up a copy of Fangoria - which, at 10, I wasn't allowed to read - and flips it open to a picture of this otherworldly ass-kicker with mandibles, dreadlocks, intense beady eyes and one helluva arsenal to play with. That June, I watched the Predator in action. In the subsequent weeks, I couldn't stop drawing this creation Winston permanently fixed into my memory.

Many, many years later I was able to tell Winston how much Predator, furthermore, Jurassic Park and Pumpkinhead made me seriously flirt with a career in FX. He jokingly chastised me for ditching my pursuit. We met at the Shrine Auditorium to talk about his Showtime series (and toy line) Creature Features. He was personable, well-spoken and carried the confidence of a sales man but never came across as cocky. And, in addition to being an amazing FX wizard, he gave a great interview. The same could be said of our second encounter at the Standard in Hollywood where he was promoting Skinwalkers, a labor of love.

News of Winston's passing hit me late Sunday through a friend seeking confirmation. The next morning, I was weary from trying to find some solid information on the AP news wire. Solid word came, appropriately enough, while I was sitting in a chair undergoing a zombie transformation for an upcoming horror film. The solemn FX team had received a text message from someone in Winston's shop. The next day, I tossed on Predator, the first film to make me truly appreciate the special FX craft.

A number of notable FX artists in the industry reached out to me this week to express their thoughts on Winston. How they were inspired by him. What it was like working alongside someone who realized such incredible visions.

Steve Wang (The Monster Squad, Predator): Undoubtedly people will remember Stan Winston as a prominent icon of the makeup effects industry and perhaps more. Having worked for Stan, I will always remember him as not only a mentor, but also a jokester. I want to share one of many funny stories about my working experience with Stan Winston. I feel this will give people who have never met him a small taste of whom Stan was.

I was working for him on Monster Squad back in 1986. Stan heard I was going to the post office during my lunch break. He asks me if I could mail a letter for him. I was more than happy to oblige. He gave me a dollar to cover the postage. After lunch I came back and gave Stan a change of 10 cents. Now, it's no secret Stan is Jewish and no doubt everyone has heard of the old stereotyping of Jews as being very tight with money. Stan certainly knows this stereotype well and plays it up all time. He calls the attention of the ?entire' shop to which he publicly thanks me for mailing his letter, then he proceeds to tell me, very slowly and deliberately to "KEEP THE CHANGE" all the while making a show of it in good humor. The entire shop busts out in laughter and we all continue on to our work. It was good vibes knowing the boss had a sense of humor and could make fun of himself just to make us laugh. It also made us all feel closer as a team and a family.

The incredible opportunities that Stan gave me jumped started my career and I will forever be grateful to him for believing in me even when I doubted myself. Thank you Stan. You will be missed?

Greg Nicotero (KNB EFX): I moved to Los Angeles in 1985, immediately after wrapping production on Day of the Dead. The 1st film I was hired on was Invaders from Mars at Stan Winston Studios. Since he was shooting Aliens at the same time, they had a substantial crew working seven days a week. My first walk through of the shop had displays from Terminator, artwork from The Thing and designs from Aliens adorning the walls. I was thrilled to see such amazing work up close and personal and was struck by the talented artists that Stan attracted. He was a tireless showman and his studio was truly inspirational.

It was here that I met people that would change my life. Shannon Shea, Gino Crognale, to name a few. The caliber of artists that were cultivate by Stan are countless?.Steve Wang, Matt Rose, Mike Trcic, Dave Nelson, of course Howard Berger and Bob Kurtzman who eventually became my partners. Stan took makeup effects and creature work to a whole new level, employing makeup, animatronics and puppet technology at the height of its popularity. It was this blend of techniques that I feel contributed dramatically to the crossover between various effects techniques even today with practical and digital creature work - always fool the audience - keep them guessing. The work in Jurassic Park literally floored me - cutting from this amazing full size T-Rex to a walking digital creature in one shot was sheer genius. Stan?s imagination and vision have left a legacy that will continue to inspire film makers and film goers for decades to come.

Robert Kurtzman (Precinct 13): I had the great pleasure and privilege of working with the Stan early in my career on Predator, Aliens and Invaders from Mars. Stan was an incredibly generous person, family man and artist who gave me the opportunity, at a very young age, to learn from him and the talented team at Stan Winston Studio. His creations inspired not only me, but a generation of artists. He was a true master of movie magic and he will never be forgotten.

Aaron Sims (Concept Artist, A.I., Constantine): I was very one of the few he told me about his condition early on. His fear was that if the industry knew he was sick, they would stop coming to us for work. So, in a way, it was a selfless act that he wanted to keep it quiet more for us than himself. He's a warm, positive, man. No matter what. When we were not getting work, he's always say, 'We'll get something, don't worry about it.' He was always good to be around during that time, he always took care of the guys in the shop. He had a goofy sense of humor and would catch you off guard. We were having a meeting with producers one time and he'd always have a new cell phone ringer. The day we had this meeting, and when the phone rang, it was salsa music. He just got up and started dancing. It was an intense meeting, so it broke the ice. He always knew how to deal with situations like that. He will be missed. It's shocking to think he was gone.

Robert Hall (Almost Human FX): Stan's untimely passing has sent shockwaves through the entire FX business at lightning speed. In 1995, I had the pleasure of working at Stan Winston Studios for a year and Stan was always supportive, positive and above all else an inspiration to anyone in his studio. My best memory of Stan was when they were doing Planet of the Apes tests (way back in '96!) and Stan himself was wearing ape prosthetics for a video test. As I was painting something for The Relic he snuck up on me and scared the living **** out of me. His scares will be missed.

Norman Cabrera (Thirteen Ghosts, House of 1000 Corpses): I never worked with Stan, but I was very sad to hear of his death. His enthusiasm and love of movies showed in every interview I every saw of him. The work he and his very talented crew produced showed exceptional taste and skill. Although growing up I was much more obsessed by the work of Rick Baker, seeing his stuff in the pages of Fango when I was a kid was quite inspirational. It's the end of an era, but he did leave us with a pretty impressive and influential body of work. RIP Stan.

Jason Collins (Autonomous F/X, Inc.): I've never had the chance to work with or for Stan Winston, yet I've felt his influence since I was thirteen years old. To say that he was just an artist or business owner doesn't even begin to define what he leaves behind. The man was an institution. On a personal level I've been inspired by him and his iconic characters such as Aliens, Pumpkinhead and Monster Squad since I was 13 years old making my friends up and causing trouble.

One of my personal favorites has always been Edward Scissorhands, although Johnny Depp is amazing it's tough to imagine what he would of done without Stan's touch. I've always felt that he's created characters - not just guys in suits or nicely-painted makeup. Living, breathing, iconic characters.

Since I've professionally started in this business, almost everyone I've ever worked for or with has used his company, along with Rick Baker, as a standard to reach for. He's taken the rag-tag garage boys that would stay up all night inhaling fumes to get a job done and built them a home. He insisted on time and appropriate scheduling with production to make sure the job was done right. His business-savvy is the thing that I've come to respect most. None of the art that we have come to love is ever created without someone who can stand up to producers for it. Not only has he taught us to stand up for it, he taught us how to stand behind it with quality, care and professionalism. Today, as I was reorganizing my own shop I thought a lot about him. I think about how things are complicated and overwhelming whether it be client politics, organizing everything for efficiency or challenging your own skill set to become better. I think about these things and how they effect and navigate me in my decisions as we work to carve out a name for ourselves in this business and find myself in awe to think of all that Stan did. Not only do I find myself inspired by his legacy of professionalism, I think about his marriage of 30 plus years to his wife. From the outside looking in I hope to have the same stability in both my personal and work life like he did. Again, another inspiration!