Stan Winston | |
|---|---|
 Winston at the1997 Cannes Film Festival | |
| Born | Stanley Winston (1946-04-07)April 7, 1946 Richmond, Virginia, U.S. |
| Died | June 15, 2008(2008-06-15) (aged 62) Malibu, California, U.S. |
| Resting place | Hillside Memorial Park Cemetery |
| Occupation | Special effects artist |
| Years active | 1972–2008 |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 2, includingMatt Winston |
Stanley Winston[1] (April 7, 1946 – June 15, 2008) was an American television and filmspecial make-up effects artist, best known for his work in theTerminator series, the first threeJurassic Park films,Aliens,The Thing, the first twoPredator films,Inspector Gadget,Iron Man, andEdward Scissorhands.[2][3][4] He won fourAcademy Awards for his work.
Winston, a frequent collaborator with directorsJames Cameron,Steven Spielberg andTim Burton, owned several effects studios, including Stan Winston Digital. The established areas of expertise for Winston were in makeup, puppets and practical effects, but at the time of his death, he had expanded his studio to encompass digital effects as well.
Winston was born on April 7, 1946, inRichmond, Virginia[5] to aJewish family,[6] where he graduated fromWashington-Lee High School in 1964. He studied painting and sculpture at theUniversity of Virginia inCharlottesville, from which he graduated in 1968.[4]
In 1969, after attendingCalifornia State University, Long Beach, Winston moved toHollywood to pursue a career as an actor. Struggling to find an acting job, he began a makeup apprenticeship atWalt Disney Studios.[4]
In 1972, Winston established his own company, Stan Winston Studio, and in 1973, he won anEmmy Award for his effects work on the 1972 telefilmGargoyles. Over the next seven years, Winston continued to receiveEmmy Award nominations for work on projects and won another for 1974'sThe Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman. Winston also created theWookiee costumes for the 1978Star Wars Holiday Special. In 1978, Winston was the Special Make-up Designer forThe Wiz.
In 1982, Winston received his first Oscar nomination forHeartbeeps, by which time he had set up his own studio. However, it was his ground-breaking work withRob Bottin on his update of the science fiction horror classicThe Thing that year that brought him to prominence in Hollywood. He also worked on supervised vision work onThe Entity. Between then, he contributed some special effects toFriday the 13th Part III, in which he made a slightly different head sculpt ofJason in an unused ending.
In 1983, Winston designed theMr. Roboto facemask for the American rock groupStyx.[7]
In 1983 he also worked on the short-lived television seriesManimal, for which he created the panther and hawk transformation effects.
Winston reached a new level of fame in 1984 whenJames Cameron'sThe Terminator premiered. The movie was a surprise hit, and Winston's work in bringing the titular metallic killing machine to life led to many new projects and additional collaborations with Cameron. In fact, Winston won his firstAcademy Award for Best Visual Effects in 1986 on James Cameron's next movie,Aliens.[8]
Over the next few years, Winston and his company received more accolades for its work on many more Hollywood films, includingTim Burton'sEdward Scissorhands,John McTiernan'sPredator,Alien Nation,The Monster Squad, andPredator 2.
In 1988, Winston made his directorial debut with the horror moviePumpkinhead, and won Best First Time Director at the Paris Film Festival. His next directing project was the child-friendlyA Gnome Named Gnorm (1990), starringAnthony Michael Hall.
James Cameron drafted Winston and his team once again in 1990, this time forTerminator 2: Judgment Day.T2 premiered in the summer of 1991, and Winston's work on this box office hit won him two moreAcademy Awards forBest Makeup andBest Visual Effects.
In 1992, he was nominated for anotherTim Burton film, thesuperhero sequelBatman Returns, where he designed the makeup prosthetics forDanny DeVito'sPenguin. Additionally, his studio was commissioned to create robotic penguin puppets that were used throughout the film.
Winston turned his attention from super villains andcyborgs todinosaurs whenSteven Spielberg enlisted his help to bringMichael Crichton'sJurassic Parkto the cinema screen. In 1993, the movie became a blockbuster and Winston won another Oscar forBest Visual Effects.
In 1993, Winston, Cameron and ex-ILM General ManagerScott Ross co-foundedDigital Domain, one of the foremost digital and visual effects studios in the world. In 1998, after the box office success ofTitanic, Cameron and Winston severed their working relationship with the company and resigned from its board of directors.
Winston and his team continued to provide effects work for many more films and expanded their work intoanimatronics. Some of Winston's notable animatronics work can be found inThe Ghost and the Darkness andT2-3D: Battle Across Time, James Cameron's 3-D continuation of theTerminator series for theUniversal Studios theme parks. One of Winston's most ambitious animatronics projects was Steven Spielberg'sA.I. Artificial Intelligence, which earned Winston another Oscar nomination forBest Visual Effects.
In 1996, Winston directed and co-produced the longest music video of all time,Ghosts, which was based on an original concept ofMichael Jackson andStephen King. The long-form music video presented a number of never before seen visual effects, and promoted music fromBlood on the Dance Floor: HIStory in the Mix, which went on to become the biggest selling remix album of all time (13 million).
In 2001, Winston, together withColleen Camp andSamuel Z. Arkoff's son,Lou Arkoff, produced a series of made-for-cable films forCinemax andHBO. The five films, referred to asCreature Features, were inspired by the titles ofAIP monster movies from the 1950s — i.e.,Earth vs. the Spider (1958),How to Make a Monster (1958),Day the World Ended (1955),The She-Creature (1956), andTeenage Caveman (1958) — but had completely different plots.[9] two reasons Stan Winston did this was because he'd had worked with AIP in their last years providing special effects forThe Bat People (1974) and start a toy line with action figures from the aforementioned four film remakes.[10]
In 2002 Winston helped to launch a new comic line, Stan Winston's Realm Of The Claw / Mutant Earth which was a flip book and ran for 4 issues. Stan Winston's Trakk Monster Hunter came out in 2003 and ran for 2 issues. These were published by Image Comics.
In 2003, Winston was invited by theSmithsonian Institution to speak about his life and career in a public presentation sponsored by The Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation. The presentation took place on November 15, 2003, at the Smithsonian'sNational Museum of American History.[11]
Winston also worked onTerminator 3: Rise of the Machines.
By April 2003, Winston was working on his next project,Jurassic Park IV.[12]By April 2005, Winston said the film was on hold.[13] The film would eventually be released in 2015 titledJurassic World.
At the time of his death, Winston was working on the fourthTerminator film,Terminator Salvation,[14] as well as frequent collaborator James Cameron's filmAvatar. Winston designed the original monsters that appeared in theMidway gameThe Suffering[15] and its sequel,The Suffering: Ties That Bind.
Stan Winston died on June 15, 2008, inMalibu, California, after suffering for seven years frommultiple myeloma.[2] A spokeswoman reported that he "died peacefully at home surrounded by family."[3] Winston was with his wife and two children, actorMatt Winston and Debbie Winston.Arnold Schwarzenegger made a public speech about his death, andJon Favreau dedicated his Spike TVScream Award to him upon receiving the award for Best Sci-Fi Movie forIron Man.Terminator Salvation is dedicated to both Winston and Joseph R. Kubicek Sr, with the dedication appearing at both the beginning and end of the film. After his death, his four supervisors (Shane Mahan, John Rosengrant, Alan Scott, Lindsay Macgowan) founded and built their own studio,Legacy Effects, named to honor his memory.[16] A private funeral was held for Winston at Hillside Memorial Park.[17]
In 2009, the year after his death, the Winston family founded theStan Winston School of Character Arts to "preserve Stan's legacy by inspiring and fostering creativity in a new generation of character creators.”[18] The school, which is 100% online, currently offers hundreds of in-depth, on-demand educational video courses by Hollywood's leading special effects artists and creators. Topics covered include design, sculpture, mold making, lab work, animatronics, makeup effects, puppet making, painting, and fabrication.
Winston worked with the following directors on more than one film:
