23 Facts About Stan Winston

1.

Stanley Winston was an American television and film special make-up effects creator, best known for his work in the Terminator series, the first three Jurassic Park films, Aliens, The Thing, the first two Predator films, Inspector Gadget, Iron Man, and Edward Scissorhands.

2.

The established areas of expertise for Winston were in makeup, puppets and practical effects, but he had recently expanded his studio to encompass digital effects as well.

3.

Stan Winston was born on April 7,1946, in Richmond, Virginia to a Jewish family, where he graduated from Washington-Lee High School in 1964.

4.

Stan Winston studied painting and sculpture at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, from which he graduated in 1968.

5.

In 1969, after attending California State University, Long Beach, Stan Winston moved to Hollywood to pursue a career as an actor.

6.

Stan Winston created the Wookiee costumes for the 1978 Star Wars Holiday Special.

7.

In 1978 Stan Winston was the Special Make-up Designer for The Wiz.

8.

In 1982, Stan Winston received his first Oscar nomination for Heartbeeps, by which time he had set up his own studio.

9.

Stan Winston worked on supervised vision work on The Entity.

10.

In 1983, Stan Winston designed the Mr Roboto facemask for the American rock group Styx.

11.

Stan Winston reached a new level of fame in 1984 when James Cameron's The Terminator premiered.

12.

Stan Winston won his first Academy Award for Best Visual Effects in 1986 on James Cameron's next movie, Aliens.

13.

In 1988, Stan Winston made his directorial debut with the horror movie Pumpkinhead, and won Best First Time Director at the Paris Film Festival.

14.

Stan Winston's next directing project was the child-friendly A Gnome Named Gnorm, starring Anthony Michael Hall.

15.

Stan Winston turned his attention from super villains and cyborgs to dinosaurs when Steven Spielberg enlisted his help to bring Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park to the cinema screen.

16.

In 1993, the movie became a blockbuster and Stan Winston won another Oscar for Best Visual Effects.

17.

In 1998, after the box office success of Titanic, Cameron and Stan Winston severed their working relationship with the company and resigned from its board of directors.

18.

In 1996, Stan Winston directed and co-produced the longest music video of all time, Ghosts, which was based on an original concept of Michael Jackson and Stephen King.

19.

In 2003, Stan Winston was invited by the Smithsonian Institution to speak about his life and career in a public presentation sponsored by The Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation.

20.

At the time of his death, Stan Winston was working on the fourth Terminator film, Terminator Salvation, as well as frequent collaborator James Cameron's film Avatar.

21.

Stan Winston designed the original monsters that appeared in the Midway game The Suffering and its sequel, The Suffering: Ties That Bind.

22.

Stan Winston died on June 15,2008, in Malibu, California, after suffering for seven years from multiple myeloma.

23.

Stan Winston worked with the following directors on more than one film:.