Stears was born inUxbridge,Middlesex (now part ofGreater London) on 25 August 1934 and grew up in nearbyIckenham. Stears studied at Harrow College of Art and Southall Technical School before working as a draughtsman with the Air Ministry.
He served as a dispatch rider during hisNational Service, then joined a firm of architects where he was able to utilise his passion for model-making by constructing scale models of building projects for clients.[3]
For most of his life he lived atWelders House inBeaconsfield,Buckinghamshire, where he reared cattle and his wife ran the Livny Borzoi Kennels, breeding Borzoi show dogs.[3]
In 1993, he sold hisWelders House country estate in Buckinghamshire to the singerOzzy Osbourne and emigrated to California with his wife Brenda, whom he married in 1960, the couple had two children.[3]
He created some of the most famous scenes in the movies. He blew up the villain's Jamaican hideout at the end ofDr. No (1962), and forGoldfinger (1964), he created Agent 007'sAston Martin DB5, featuring bullet-proof windows, revolving licence plates, forward-firing machine guns, a rear oil-slick dispenser and a passenger-side ejector seat.[4]
Stears grew disenchanted with the Bond franchise, and vowed never to do another one. He complained that the "team spirit" had gone. Stears expressed great regret thatKevin McClory could not get his rival Bond film,Warhead, into production, as Stears wanted to work on that film.[5]
In 1976, Stears received a telephone call fromGeorge Lucas, who had been a great admirer of the Bond films, who wanted to know if he was interested in creating mechanical and electrical effects for a film that he had written,Star Wars. Stears accepted the offer.[3] Stears had something in common withAlec Guinness andJohn Williams; he had won an Academy Award before working onStar Wars.[6]ForStar Wars (1977), Stears created the robotsR2-D2 andC-3PO, Luke Skywalker'sLandspeeder, the special effects for the Jedi Knights'lightsabers - the first lightsaber hilt props having been created forStar Wars byRoger Christian -, and theDeath Star.[3][2][7] Stears was also credited, along with John Dykstra, for the original film's climactic aerial dogfight.[7] Other well known mechanical effects Stears orchestrated included the garbage compactor, making anX-wing fighter fly and the Jawa'ssandcrawler.[8]
In 1978, producerHarry Saltzman hired Stears to direct the "shrunken man" epic filmThe Micronauts. The troubled project had been in pre-production for many years and saw many directors come and go; ultimately the film never made it into production.[9]
John Stears with his two Academy Awards and Saturn Award
John Stears is notably one of only a few people to ever win an Academy Award for aJames Bond film and one of only eight to win an Academy Award for aStar Wars film.
Stears died on 28 April 1999 inUCLA Medical Center after a stroke. His wife, Brenda, and other family members had wanted the death kept quiet until after services in Pacific Palisades in May and in London. The family announced his death in June of that same year. Stears owned homes in Pacific Palisades and in Beaconsfield, England, where he and his wife raised cattle and show dogs.[7]
