Stan Winston, who has died of multiple myeloma aged 62, was the creator of some of the most memorable and iconic fantasy and science-fiction figures in modern Hollywood cinema.
He was the creative genius behind the look of Terminator, Predator, the Alien Queen in Aliens (1986), the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park (1993) and the title character in Tim Burton's modern fairy tale Edward Scissorhands (1990).
Starting off as a make-up artist in television 40 years ago, he branched out to work with animatronics and puppetry, as well as human actors, in creating his gallery of aliens, robots and other exotic beings.
He won no fewer than four Oscars - for visual effects on Aliens, for visual effects and and for make-up on Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), and for visual effects on Jurassic Park.
But the term "visual effects" is slightly misleading. "I don't do special effects," he once said. "I do characters."
For Winston, it always began with the character, irrespective of whether it was Johnny Depp underneath the make-up in Edward Scissorhands or an animatronic rig beneath a latex skin in Jurassic Park.
"Special effects, by themselves, don't mean diddly squat in a movie," he said. "If the characters I created can't perform, can't act and aren't interesting, it just isn't going to work." His monsters were never just monsters. The title character in Predator (1987) was an alien killer, but he must surely have been the first alien killer to sport dreadlocks, elevating him to cult status.
Winston produced huge working models for Aliens and Jurassic Park.
He was born in Arlington, Virginia, and from an early age he was interested in drawing, puppets and films, particularly horror.
He and his team of 50 specialists at Stan Winston Studio worked on the current hits Iron Man and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, as well as several movies that are still to come out.
His company has also worked on adverts, including the classic Budweiser advert with the frog chorus.
His many other films include Batman Returns (1992, Interview with the Vampire (1994), Pearl Harbor (2001) and AI (2001).
He is survived by his wife and two children.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article