I was aware of Fangoria magazine long before I finally found a copy, sometime in the mid-80s, most likely from mentions in Starlog magazine, the Young Ones episode Nasty and the furore around the Video Nasties. Recently, I managed to re-connect with my past and picked up - from ebay - the first issue I ever read.
Fangoria magazine was launched in 1979 as a companion to Starlog, which covered sci-fi films. The first issue, published in July, was edited by “Joe Bonham” (Ed Naha and Ric Meyers) after which Robert “Uncle Bob” Martin took over. Initially focusing on fantasy films, the magazine didn’t really gain traction until positive audience response was noticed for an article celebrating effects artist Tom Savini (and his gruesome work for Dawn Of The Dead (1978)), at which point Martin was given the chance to shift focus. The seventh issue, with a cover story of The Shining (1980), was apparently the first to achieve a profit and set a formula the magazine stuck with for at least as long as I read it. Martin remained as editor until 1986 (he left to work with Frank Henenlotter on the screenplays for Frankenhooker (1990) - still a real favourite of mine - and Basket Case 3 (1991)) and was eventually replaced by Tony Timpone, who successfully steered Fangoria through to the 2000’s. Chris Alexander took over in 2010 but the magazine was caught up in various strifes of the publishing company, leading to sporadic issues, radical design changes and lack of focus. After being missing in action for a while, it’s apparently up and running again now but has never tempted me back.
I discovered the magazine in a newsagents on Newland Street in Kettering, popping in so often to check for new issues I ended up friendly with the man who ran the shop. I bought almost every issue from there, so much so that Alison & I always referred to it as The Fango Shop (something Dude picked up too - he’d come in to buy “Dad’s horror comic” with me, though he never read it), though sadly the shop’s now under new ownership. Much later, when I discovered The Cinema Store in London, I was able to pick up some back issues for reasonable prices but, sadly, that place has now long-since disappeared too (it's almost like there's a trend, eh?).
But back then, Fangoria turned out to be everything I ever wanted it to be - and more!
I think my first regular issue was Fango 58 (I wish I could be sure but, sadly, lent a friend my entire run, from 1986 to 1990 or so and have never seen them again) and it was just perfect for me - full of interesting behind the scenes articles, news, book reviews, wonderfully gory colour pictures and a complete love for the types of horror films that I adored. It made stars of the make-up effects people (like Rick Baker, the afore-mentioned Tom Savini, Rob Bottin, the KNB boys and many more), the writers and directors of the types of films you’d see with gaudy covers in video shops and the lesser known actors who made those films so damned watchable.
The 80s was also a boom time - the slasher cycle might have been running down slowly but horror was big news, with Freddy and Jason and Re-Animator (1985) and all else. I was going to the cinema, watching these things on double bills with friends, catching up with titles I’d missed on VHS and often on the recommendation of Fango, whose articles had whetted my appetite.
Not that the magazine wasn’t misunderstood. Since my kid sister Sarah was only about 3 or 4 at the time and frequently wandered into my bedroom to see what I was doing, I had to hide Fango away lest I scar her for life. Years later, Alison tolerated it well but I remember my sister-in-law once asking me if a picture she saw was real. I enjoyed the Fango sense of humour and community - I felt like I belonged - but it really wasn’t a mainstream gang by any means and I was perfectly alright with that.
The Bloody Best, I can see now, is a money-making compilation but as a greatest hits package, it worked brilliantly. Just look at the articles in the issue - David Cronenberg, Tom Savini, Dick Miller, Brian DePalma, Wes Craven, George Romero, Elvira, Re-Animator, Nightmare On Elm Street (Englund and his make-up) as well as Stephen King and Peter Straub. It’s difficult in this day and age, where everything is online and we know about films as soon as they’re announced, to fully convey the size of its impact but imagine being a teenaged horror fan, opening up a treasure trove like this.
As I mentioned, I found the magazine (in a bundle with Bloody Best 3 and 4 too!) on ebay and bought it with birthday money from my parents (I told them they’d bought me Fango and Dad, with a smile in his voice, said “is it still gory…?”) and re-reading it has been wonderful. The magazine is filled with articles that instantly throw me back to 1986, that I read so often I could practically quote them and pictures so vivid they’ve never left my minds eye.
While you can’t go back (and I have absolutely no intention of seeking out the latest Fango), occasionally you can visit the old days and sometimes that’s just as good.
I have a list in my head, of books that I would love to read (that goes back decades) and I never seem to forget the entries on it. Sometimes I'll prowl online sites, to see if I can spot a bargain (one of the issues of wanting to read old books is that sometimes they're very expensive), but mostly I frequent 2nd hand bookshops and keep my eyes open. A few weeks back, I met my good friend Steve Bacon in Leicester and we called into the Loros Bookshop and I made a major discovery. Even better, Making A Monster - which I've been looking for since discovering it existed in the late 80s - was only £4 so I snapped it up.
A behind-the-scenes look at the great film makeup artists, their careers and creations, from Frankenstein to Star Wars, with revealing information on how to make your own monsters.
As regular readers of the blog will know (and if you don’t, this thread might interest you), I have a keen interest in the
behind-the-scenes nuts and bolts that go into the making of a film, everything from
matte paintings to miniatures and all points between. Back in the mid-70s, as a big fan of the TV series (my parents even bought me a plastic ape mask), I was given the Brown Watson Planet Of The Apesannual for Christmas and read it eagerly. I loved the whole thing but one piece in particular, a section near the back called ‘How To Make A Monkey Out Of Roddy McDowall’, really grabbed me.
So Roddy McDowall was actually a man? The apes, chimps and orangutans in the TV show weren’t really apes, chimps and orangutans - they were people, made up to look like them! My six-year-old mind was blown.
In the 80s, as home video allowed me to watch films I'd only read about and I discovered the glory of Fangoria, I read as much as I could about make-up artists, becoming a huge fan of Rick Baker in the process (I wrote a post about him, which you can read here). While I was devouring as much of this information as I could, I heard about Making A Monster and was keen to read it but it seemed to constantly be slipping out of my grasp. Until now.
Back then, I imagined it would be full of instructions on how to create monsters (as the title would suggest) but it’s so much more, a roll-call of make-up greats from the start of the film industry up to Rick Baker. Twenty-five artists are interviewed, some more interesting than others, but thanks to the timing (most of the early stalwarts were still alive when the book was published in 1981) there’s only a few who didn’t get to contribute some thoughts or anecdotes.
There's a good deal of information away from films and it was particularly heartening to read of the likes of Jack Dawn (who built prosthetic appliances for injured soldiers returning from World War 2), Gordon Bau (who created prosthetics for amputees after the war) and Howard Smit (who made up a team of undercover policemen trying to track down criminals mugging old ladies). The John Chambers segment (he of Apes fame) is fascinating - as well as his credited make-up work in films, it appears he did a lot for other films without credit (including the head in the boat sequence from Jaws) in addition to a lot of work with wounded soldiers and people who'd suffered life-altering injuries and became the first make-up artist to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame. The book finishes with Stan Winston and Rick Baker, two men just starting out at the time (most of Baker’s section covers King Kong and goes into details of his stressful time on the film), who would go on to do great things - as the book was published, Baker was a year off creating his An American Werewolf In London effects that would win him an Oscar.
John Chambers works (with his assistant Tom Burman, who gets a chapter to himself) on the Planet Of The Apes make-up
Competently written and well laid out, it’s clear Sue Roy (who apparently did most of the work) interviewed her subjects thoroughly and it’s nice to see the changes in the film industry over the span of the twentieth century, with the newcomers building on the work of those who came before - and being reverential about it. The book does have some glitches - the aforementioned Dawn is given full credit for the Creature From The Black Lagoon make-up, completely ignoring Milicent Patrick while Jacqueline Pearce who is mentioned as being the eponymous reptile in the Hammer film is shown, in a photograph, with the actress being menaced given her name - but these kind of add to its charm in a strange way.
The great Rick Baker at work creating the Incredible Melting Man
I found this completely fascinating, explaining difficult processes in a clear and easy way and really giving these technicians a chance to shine. I’m glad I finally managed to track down a copy and if, like me, you’re interested in movie make-up, I’d very much recommend it.
The back cover collage shows the various stages Christopher Lee went through to become Frankenstein's monster
In August 1981, I went to the Ohio cinema in Kettering with my best friend Nick to watch Raiders Of The Lost Ark. I'd already heard a lot about it and I'm happy to say it didn't disappoint on any level whatsoever.
Rather than write my usual retrospective post to celebrate its birthday, I've decided to do something different for Steven Spielberg's excellent film. As regular readers of the blog will know, I'm a big fan of behind-the-scenes processes on films (especially miniatures, matte paintings and make-up) and I thought this would be the ideal opportunity to take a look at some of the effectsartistry in the first Indiana Jones adventure.
Raiders Of The Lost Ark, a Lucasfilm Ltd production, opened in the UK on 30th July 1981. It was directed by Steven Spielberg, produced by Frank Marshall, Robert Watts, Howard Kazanjian and George Lucas and written by Lawrence Kasdan from a story by Lucas and Philip Kaufman. Douglas Slocombe was director of photography, Norman Reynolds was the production designer, John Williams composed the music and Richard Edlund of ILM supervised the special effects. The film was edited by Michael Kahn and Dr Jones' iconic wardrobe was designed by Deborah Nadoolman.
special effects and miniatures supervised by Richard Edlund
An ILM crew films the miniature submarine - modelmaker Steve Gawley is closest to camera, Edlund is on the shelf with red sleeves
Paul Huston prepares the miniature of the ceremony plateau for the fiery climax
The spirits from the Ark
An actress called Greta Hicks (top left picture) is suspended on wires (middle picture right), photographed against black and then composited into the plateau set as shot at Elstree Studios in London (bottom picture).
For background ghosts and movement (top right), Steve Gawley manipulates a simple puppet in water against black
matte paintings supervised by Alan Maley
Indy catches a flight to Nepal on a Pan Am clipper. Top - still from film middle - the matte painting (including livery) bottom - the actual plane (and extras)
Marion Ravenwood's bar in Nepal, realised as a matte painting by Michael Pangrazio
film still - Gobler drives over the cliff as Indy forces him off the road
film still - Gobler's staff car is still falling
Alan Maley at work on the cliff matte painting. The dark, unpainted area is the trajectory the model of the staff car will follow
The final shot (and possibly one of the most famous matte paintings ever) Michael Pangrazio's warehouse, which is held on screen for a long time, with only the small portion of the middle section as a live action insert
make-up effects supervised by Chris Walas
The key make-up sequence (aside from loads of skeletons and the remains of poor old Satipo and Forrestal at the beginning) comes as Belloq (Paul Freeman), Dietrich (Wolf Kahler) and Toht (Ronald Lacey) open the Ark.
Life moulds of the actors in the screaming positions they would eventually be shown in were taken, from which Walas rebuilt the faces in the various materials required.
If only they knew...
Dietrich has his head shrunk...
film still
The head was attached to a vacuum which simply sucked the air out of the hollow head
Toht melts...
film still
Toht's head was built out of gelatin and heat was used to melt it. The sequence was shot at a little under a frame a second (take note of the glasses next time you watch it) and remains, to my mind, a superb effect. Chris Walas sculpts the head and makes adjustments to the finished version on the ILM stage.
And Belloq's head explodes...
film still
The 'uncovered' shot of Belloq's head exploding - when the MPAA saw this, they were adamant it was too much, leading to Spielberg adding the flames you see in the film still. A plaster skull was overlaid with clay, filled with blood bags and shot at with two shotguns and compressed air. According to Walas, "The stage was an absolute mess after we got that shot" The shot lasts for about 30 frames, just over a second, on screen.
left - Chris Walas puts the finishing touches to the puppet Belloq head, made from a cast of Paul Freeman (right)
Behind The Scenes
Director Steven Spielberg (right) confers with Director Of Photography Douglas Slocombe, who went on to shoot all three films of the Indiana Jones trilogy. He had retired by the time they made the fourth film, though Spielberg tried to emulate the "warm look" his DoP achieved. Slocombe, who was made an OBE in 2008, was nominated for 11 BAFTAs (winning 3) and 3 Oscars (including for Raiders). He died on 22nd February 2016 aged 103.
Shooting the final sequence on Norman Reynolds' set at Elstree Studios
Karen Allen as Marion is about to have a close encounter with some mummies... Spielberg is looking through the viewfinder
In order to make a better silhouette, Harrison Ford and John Rhys-Davies use a plywood cut-out of the Ark.
Ford practises his whip-craft on the backlot at Elstree Studios.
Spielberg, Melissa Mathison and Harrison Ford (the latter two were married at the time). Mathison was in Tunisia as they filmed Raiders and Spielberg told her the story of what would become ET, for which she wrote the screenplay.
Happy birthday Indy!
Look out for another post covering "Temple Of Doom" and "The Last Crusade" coming soon...
As regular readers of my blog will know (and if you don’t, this thread might interest you), I have a keen interest in the
behind-the-scenes nuts and bolts that go into the making of a film, everything from
matte paintings to miniature work and all points between. Following on from my post about Rick Baker (which you can read here), I decided to have a look at more special effects make-up that helped spark my interest in the art as I was growing up.
In 1974, Twentieth Century Fox decided to move away from the films and shifted the Planet Of The
Apes saga to a weekly TV show. Apparently it hit the UK screens in October of that year
so I would have watched it in either 74 or 75. I
was six and loved it, embracing the whole she-bang - for years, I had a plastic ape mask that my parents
picked up somewhere, which for a long time was one of my most favourite things
ever and I was also an avid collector of the bubble-gum cards. That Christmas, I was bought the Brown Watson annual (which I still have) and read it eagerly. In addition to the usual 'kids annual' fare of comic strips, prose
stories and biographies, there was a section at the back called ‘How To Make A
Monkey Out Of Roddy McDowall’. Hold on a minute - Roddy
McDowall was a man? Well, that was a surprise. So the apes, chimps and
orangutans in the TV show weren’t really apes, chimps and orangutans - they
were people, made up to look like them!
My six-year-old mind was blown.
John Chambers & Roddy McDowall pose for a publicity shot
John Chambers (September 12, 1922 – August 25, 2001) was
born in Chicago, Illinois and trained as a commercial artist, starting his
career designing jewellery and carpets.
Following service in World War II as a medical technician, he worked at
the Veterans Affairs hospital in Hines, Illinois, repairing faces and making
prosthetic limbs for wounded veterans, in addition to training under Ben Nye,
who was then head of make-up at 20th Century Fox. Starting out as a special make-up effects
artist, he created Spock’s ears for the original “Star Trek” TV series (in
1966) and worked on “The Munsters”, “The Outer Limits” and “Mission: Impossible”
before winning an Oscar in 1968 for his work on “Planet Of The Apes”. He worked extensively in films (“Slaughterhouse
Five”, “Superbeast”, “Sssssss”, “The Island Of Dr Moreau”, “Halloween 2” and
(uncredited) “Blade Runner”) and retired from them in 1982, though he continued
to assist and mentor new artists. In
addition, Chambers was awarded the CIA’s Intelligence Medal of Merit for his
involvement in the ‘Canadian Caper’, wherein six American hostages escaped
during the 1979 Iran hostage crisis. The
film “Argo” (2012) covers this and Chambers was played by John Goodman.
This image shows the process in detail.
Roddy McDowell (who played Cornelius in the original "Planet Of The Apes", as well as Galen in the TV series) was famed for his home movies. This one shows him being made up (by Don Cash) for the film and also includes some footage of the production on location. I love the apes in shades!
Jump forward a few years (to the very early 80s) and I picked up a make-up book (which I would love to find now, for a reasonable price) from the library which featured, amongst many other greats, the wonderful Lon Chaney and I was staggered at the illusions he was able to create. Later (but still in the early 80s), BBC2 began to show old horror films around teatime (can you imagine that happening now?) and once I found out "The Phantom Of The Opera" was going to be shown, I was a dedicated fan of their programming thread.
The film features Lon Chaney as Erik, The Phantom and following the success of “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” (1923), Chaney - who was skilled at the art of make-up and didn’t seem to mind the discomfort he put himself through in achieving a certain look - was given the freedom to create his own make-up. Taking his cue directly from the description in the novel, he painted his eye sockets black (to give them a skull-like impression), pulled the tip of his nose up and pinned it in place with wire, enlarged his nostrils with black paint, and put a set of jagged false teeth into his mouth to complete the overall look. When audiences first saw The Phantom, they were said to have screamed or fainted at the unmasking scene with Christine - even watching it today, there's a real frisson to the piece (and the make-up) that makes me think it must have been great fun to see this in a cinema in 1925!
Leonidas Frank ‘Lon’ Chaney (April 1, 1883 – August 26, 1930) was an American stage and film actor, director and screenwriter, who is regarded as one of the most versatile actors of early cinema. He excelled with tortured, often grotesque characters and was also a highly skilled dancer, singer and comedian whilst his groundbreaking artistry and development of special effects make-up earned him the nickname ‘The Man of a Thousand Faces’ (which was the title of the 1957 biopic starring James Cagney as Chaney).
Born in Colorado Springs, Colorado to deaf parents, he quickly became skilled in pantomime and began a stage career in 1902, travelling with popular Vaudeville and theatre acts. In 1905, he married the singer Cleva Creighton and they had one child, a son called Creighton Tull Chaney (who, as Lon Chaney, Jr., would go on to become a horror actor in his own right). The marriage soured, with Cleva attempting suicide by swallowing mercuric chloride - she survived but it ruined her singing career - and the scandal (and subsequent divorce) forced Chaney out of the theatre and into film. From 1912, he spent five years doing bit parts though his skill with make-up helped his chances. In 1915 he married a chorus girl called Hazel Hastings, a union which lasted until his death and Chaney finally gained custody of his son.
He continued to work in film with his breakthrough performance - for both his acting ability and make-up skill - being ‘The Frog’ in “The Miracle Man” (1919). He played an amputee gangster in “The Penalty” (1920), Quasimodo in “The Hunchback Of Notre Dame” (1923), Erik in the aforementioned “Phantom Of The Opera” (1925) and a carnival knife-thrower called Alonzo the Armless in The Unknown (1927). Also in 1927, he co-starred with Conrad Nagel, Marceline Day, Henry B. Walthall and Polly Moran in the Tod Browning film, “London After Midnight”, now considered as one of the most legendary and sought after lost films.
from left - "The Phantom Of The Opera", "London After Midnight", The Hunchback Of Notre Dame"
He spent the last five years of his film career from 1925-1930 working exclusively under contract to MGM. His memorable performance as a tough drill instructor in “Tell It to the Marines” (1926), earned him the affection of the Marine Corps, who made him their first honorary member from the motion picture industry. He was also widely respected by aspiring actors, to whom he offered mentoring assistance.
Two shots of Chaney with his fabled make-up kit, which is still occasionally shown to the public
Chaney developed pneumonia whilst filming “Thunder” in the winter of 1929, was diagnosed that same year with bronchial lung cancer and picked up a serious throat infection caused by artifical snow used on the film (made from cornflakes). He died of a throat haemorrhage on August 26, 1930 in Los Angeles and his funeral, on August 28 in Glendale, California, was given an Honor Guard by the US Marine Corps.
Also part of the same BBC2 strand that year was "Frankenstein" (1931), featuring the now legendary combination of Boris Karloff's wonderful performance and Jack Pierce's iconic make-up. I watched that monster lumber across the screen with wide eyes and until I saw "The Creature From The Black Lagoon", he was my favourite. Pierce's design (it's not clear how much input anyone else had) was both horrific and as logical as it could be, within the context of the story. The scar and seal come from Henry Frankenstein accessing the brain cavity and the bolts on the neck - which everyone remembers - are electrodes, to carry the electrical charge needed to revive what is, in essence, a stitched-up corpse.
Jack (Janus Piccoula) Pierce (May 5, 1889 – July 19, 1968) was a Greek born emigre who, in the 1920s, worked as a cinema manager, stuntman and actor, building an interest and ability in make-up that culminated in his transforming Jacques Lernier into an ape in “The Monkey Talks” (1926). Impressing Carl Laemmle, then head of Universal Studios, with his work, he was hired full-time after creating the rictus-grin face of Conrad Veidt in “The Man Who Laughs” (1928).
Although he had a reputation for being bad-tempered (he and Lon Chaney jr especially didn’t get on) he enjoyed a good relationship with Boris Karloff which is just as well, since the Frankenstein make-up took four hours to apply. As head of Universal Studio's make-up department, Pierce designed and created the now iconic make-ups for “Frankenstein”, “The Mummy” (1932) and “The Wolf Man” (1941) (plus their various sequels), utiliising ‘out of the kit’ techniques - building facial features out of cotton, liquid plastic or nose putty. During the 1940s, as moulded foam latex appliances - cheaper, quicker and more comfortable for the actors - were used more often, Pierce found it difficult to adapt to modern methods. With the old guard at the studio gone, he was ‘let go’ from Universal in 1946 and his last credit is as make-up artist for the TV show “Mister Ed” (from 1961 to 1964).
The following video link (which is, wonderfully, a slightly ropey VHS copy of an American TVB show from 1981) helps to explain the process and also features Dick Smith and Rick Baker (with his superb "An American Werewolf In London" make-up).
For my next mini-essay in this thread, I'll look at special make-up from the 60s, 70s and (boom-time) 80s!
The 54th Academy Awards were presented March 29th, 1982 at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Los Angeles, with the ceremony presided over by Johnny Carson. It was the first year that the award for Best Make-up was presented and the winner was Rick Baker for his work on "An American Werewolf In London"
When I discovered the magic of movie special effects make-up, first through a Planet Of The Apes annual in 1976 and later by watching a wonderful BBC2 strand of old black & white horror films, I was an instant fan of the art. Around the time that I was developing an interest, a man was starting to make waves in the industry with his superb designs, solid work ethic and photo-realistic creations.
‘I wasn’t the average kid in my neighbourhood. I really liked monsters and monster movies – even the cheap crummy ones’
At the 'local drugstore photobooth'
Richard A. “Rick” Baker was born in Binghamton, New York on 8th December, 1950. A fan of monster movies from an early age, he once said “the first make-up artist I was ever really aware of - and became a fan of - was Jack P. Pierce. He did all the great classic Universal monsters, especially Frankenstein's monster [and] that make-up hasn't been outdone. It has become this iconic image. Everybody when they think of the Monster thinks of Jack's make-up.” His passion was fuelled by TV shows, such as “The Twilight Zone” and “The Outer Limits”, as well as the magazine “Famous Monsters Of Filmland”, especially the articles by a make-up artist called Dick Smith. Baker began building monster kits and, a good artist, he took to making himself and his friends up when he was a teenager. In fact, he often used his parents oven to create make-up appliances and is quoted as saying “You don’t want to put a turkey in the oven after you’ve just baked some foam.” He took photographs of these appliances, often going to the “local drugstore in full make-up to use the photo-booth there”, which must have caused quite a stir!
His first professional industry job was at the Clokey Studios, where he was a puppet designer for the stop-motion animation series “Davey And Goliath” but his life changed in 1965 when he got a copy of Dick Smith’s “Monster Makeup Handbook”. Smith was already an influential make-up artist who helped revolutionise the field, starting out in TV before branching into films and creating work that still has the power to amaze today. For Baker, the book showed him a way forward and he’s open about how much it inspired him - as it also did the late, great Stan Winston. In fact, Baker and Winston maintained a good working relationship and friendship, sharing ideas and information with each other well into the 1980s.
Following this, he worked uncredited on “Live And Let Die” (1973) (creating the shot Baron Samedi and Yaphet Kotto’s exploding head), created the monster baby in “It’s Alive” (1973) before joining forces with fellow Dick Smith fan Stan Winston on the television movie “The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman” (1973), in which the lead character ages to 110 years old and for which Baker won an Emmy Award.
Baker’s next big break came with the 1976 version of “King Kong”. A long-time admirer of apes, he felt he was the right man for the job and joined in eager collaboration with Carlo Rambaldi, for director John Guillerman and producer Dino DeLaurentis. Unfortunately, the production was plagued with problems and he now sums up the experience with “my mind tries to suppress the memory of King Kong”. He describes the Kong he and Rambaldi designed, amidst restrictive union rules and creative differences with the producers, as "a joke" and much was made of the full-size animatronic version that Rambaldi built though for the bulk of the time we see Kong, it’s Baker in a suit. Rambaldi’s mechanical Kong, all 40ft and 6.5tonnes of it (built at a cost of $1.7m), is only seen in a few brief shots, racking up about 15 seconds of screen time.
Rick Baker, with some of his "Star Wars" creations
Burned by his experience, Baker worked on the lower-budgeted killer worm movie “Squirm” and “The Incredible Melting man” (both 1976), before helping out friends with second-unit work for the cantina sequence of “Star Wars” (1977). He contributed several aliens (some of which are only visible in the original releases) and also played one of the band members.
The final 'change-o-head', just before its few seconds of brilliance, from "An American Werewolf In London"
There were a lot of effects in the film (werewolf victims, ‘meatloaf’ Jack, the wolf itself) but the key sequence was the transformation, which Landis specified in the script ‘happens in bright light and it's extremely painful.’ As well as featuring make-up appliances on the actor David Naughton, the sequence employed what Baker called ‘change-o-heads’. These were elaborate puppet reproductions of parts of Naughton’s body (head, face, feet, torso, hands) that could stretch and transform into the wolf in real time on camera. Naughton said the transformation sequence (shot at the end of the production schedule) took six days to complete, the make-up and effects so laborious that only half an hour of footage was filmed in the week. The snout pushing through, the key change-o-head, was the last thing to be shot. As Baker says, “It would take us months to make one of the Change-O-Heads, but it would be quick to shoot [and] we laughed that the head parts took so little time on camera. It would be, “Action!”, the thing does its job, “Cut! We got it!” seconds later. I'd be, like, “What? Is that it? Don't we need another take?” And John would ask, “Does it do anything else?” “Nope…” And that would be it. All that work and it was over in a blink! But when the movie came out, I took my crew to see it and when the transformation came on screen, people stood up, clapped and cheered…”
Behind the scenes - left: John Landis pushes Rick Baker, who is operating the wolf puppet head in Piccadilly Circus right - the crew working on the 'spine' segment of the transformation sequence
The "American Werewolf In London" crew
In fact, the result was so impressive that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences decided to create a new Oscar award category specifically - Outstanding Achievement In Makeup - with Baker the first recipient.
And here it is, in all its glory (with the key 'Change-o-heads' at 2.01 and 2.09)…
After extensive work on David Cronenberg’s “Videodrome” (1983) (which I blogged about at length here), Baker re-united with John Landis for Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” (1983), which came about because the singer was so impressed by “American Werewolf” (and Rick gets a cameo, as “the guy who opens the door and comes out of the crypt, with my eyes rolled back.”).
Rick Baker's make-up for Kala, which graced the cover of Cinefex 16
Then came Hugh Hudson’s “Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes” (1984), which was a true labour of love for Baker and the opportunity to create the ultimate ape suit that he’d tried so hard to do with King Kong. He poured all of his experience into the project and relocated to England, setting up his workshop in Stage 5 at the EMI Elstree Studios. For a year, Baker’s fifty-person crew (along with a further forty wig-makers) became an ape-suit factory, turning out numerous finished suits in an assembly-line fashion (each one took about eight weeks to complete). None of the suits were identical and some, for key characters, had to be shown to age. Baker said in a Cinefex interview; “We went for a fictitious kind of ape - not a chimp and not a gorilla, but some lean more in one direction or the other. That's what was fun. I could draw what I liked from different apes and combine them according to what seemed to fit the character. Kala, Tarzan's ape-mother, is more like a chimp, though her ears are smaller. White Eyes, a mean one, is closer to a gorilla. Figs, a big fat one, has a lot of orangutan in him.” Although he was Oscar nominated, he lost out to Dick Smith’s work on “Amadeus”.
Baker works on Kevin Peter Hall, buried under the Harry make-up
Eddie Murphy, as Saul
Baker won his next Oscar for “Harry And The Hendersons” (1987). He has since called his work on the film “one of my proudest achievements. I really loved that character and I think it still holds up. I read an article about CG stuff and somebody was talking about animatronics and how they didn'’t think they could do something better than Harry was in that film -– and I did that in the 80s.”. He was nominated the following year for “Coming To America” (1988). As well as re-uniting him with John Landis, it was also the first time he worked with Eddie Murphy, making him up as several different characters in the film. Of them all, the one that took most people by surprise (including those who I watched the film at the cinema with) was Saul, the old Jewish man in the barbershop. Says Baker, “the make-up was something like 15 or 17 separate pieces of foam rubber, and when we got him all made up he couldn’t believe it, it was much more real than he expected it to be.”
Rick Baker working on David Warner in "Planet Of The Apes"
Dave Elsey and Rick Baker work on Benicio del toro for "The Wolfman"
For “Gorillas in the Mist” (1988), Baker created hyper-realistic ape suits that were mixed with real primates in the film and virtually undetectable, created a horde of Gremlins for “Gremlins 2: The New Batch” (1990), which he also co-produced, made a werewolf of Jack Nicholson in “Wolf” (1994) and won another Oscar for transforming Martin Landua into Bela Lugosi in “Ed Wood” (1994). In “The Nutty Professor” (1996), Baker worked with Eddie Murphy once more, making him both big and all the members of the Klump family, before taking on aliens in “Men in Black” (1997), which was great fun. Another ape (much bigger this time) featured in “Mighty Joe Young” (1998), Jim Carrey became the Grinch in Oscar winning make--up for “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” (2000) and Eddie Murphy was back in the make-up chair for “Nutty
Professor II: The Klumps” (2000). For Tim Burton’s poorly received “Planet of the Apes” (2001) - it’s really not very good - Baker created the excellent ape effects and his work was one of the few things praised in the film. Although he worked solidly through the 2000s, it wasn’t until “The Wolfman” (2010) that he won another Oscar, in partnership with Dave Elsey. Unfortunately, the transformation is all CGI and it shows. More recently, Baker worked on “Men in Black 3” (2012) - the Boris The Animal make-up is superb - and “Maleficent” (2014).
He was married to his first wife, Elaine Baker (nee Parkyn), from 1974 to 1984. In addition to helping him with the effects, she also appeared in “The Empire Strikes Back” (1980) as The Emperor (her voice was dubbed by Clive Revill and the eyes of an orangutan were composited over hers), though her appearance was replaced by Ian McDiarmid in all prints following “Return Of The Jedi”. He is now married to Silva Abascal, with whom he has two daughters.
Baker was awarded a Doctorate of Humane Letters from the Academy of Art University San Francisco in 2008. In 2009, he received the ‘Jack Pierce - Lifetime Achievement Award’ at the Chiller-Eyegore Awards. He also has a star (the 2,485th) on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame, located in front of the Guinness World Records Museum.
He holds the record for the most Academy Awards wins (seven) and nominations (twelve) for make-up artists.
Rick Baker wins his first Oscar, 1982
Filmography (make-up effects, unless specified)
Octaman (1971) (costume, with Doug Beswick)
Bone (1972) (uncredited)
The Thing with Two Heads (1972) (uncredited)
Schlock (1973)
The Exorcist (1973) (special effects assistant)
Live And Let Die (1973) (uncredited)
Cop Killers (1973)
Black Caesar (1973) (uncredited)
It's Alive (1974)
The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman (1974)
Flesh Gordon (1974)
King Kong (1976) (plus actor)
Track of the Moon Beast (1976)
Squirm (1976)
Zebra Force (1976)
The Food Of The Gods (1976) (uncredited)
The Incredible Melting Man (1977)
Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope (1977) (cantina make-ups for second unit, plus one of the band members)
The Fury (1978)
An American Werewolf in London (1981)
The Howling (1981) (consultant)
The Funhouse (1981)
The Incredible Shrinking Woman (1981)
Videodrome (1983)
Thriller (1983)
Starnan (1984) (transformation sequence, with Dick Smith)
Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes (1984)
Into the Night (1985) (actor only)
My Science Project (1985)
Captain EO (1986)
Ratboy (1986) (design only)
Harry and the Hendersons (1987)
Beauty and the Beast (1987–89) (design of Beast)
Werewolf (1987–88)
Coming to America (1988)
Gorillas in the Mist (1988)
Missing Link (1988)
Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990) (also co-producer)
The Rocketeer (1991)
Wolf (1994)
Ed Wood (1994)
Batman Forever (1995)
The Nutty Professor (1996)
The Frighteners (1996) (design of The Judge)
Escape from L.A. (1996)
Ghosts (1997)
Men in Black (1997)
Critical Care (1997)
Mighty Joe Young (1998)
Life (1999)
Wild Wild West (1999)
How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000)
Nutty Professor II: The Klumps (2000)
Planet of the Apes (2001)
Men in Black II (2002)
The Ring (2002)
The Haunted Mansion (2003)
Hellboy (2004)
The Ring Two (2005)
King Kong (2005) (actor only)
Cursed (2005)
X-Men: The Last Stand (2006)
Click (2006)
Enchanted (2007)
Norbit (2007)
Tropic Thunder (2008) (makeup design for Robert Downey Jr.)
The Wolfman (2010)
Tron: Legacy (2010)
Men in Black 3 (2012)
Maleficent (2014)
Academy Award wins
An American Werewolf in London (1982) (First year of the award)
Harry and the Hendersons (1988)
Ed Wood (1995)
The Nutty Professor (1997)
Men in Black (1998)
How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2001)
The Wolfman (2011)
Rick has a presence on Twitter which is up-to-date and good fun - @TheRickBaker
Update: In a wonderful twist, Rick Baker favourited my tweet promoting this blog post. I really do hope he read it and enjoyed it.
* thanks to Cinefex #16, “Rick Baker - Maker of Monsters, Master of the Apes” by Jordan Fox
