Stan Winston kept it real when it came to film and fantasy. Flashy computer effects were not high on the list of his old-school wizard’s bag of visual tricks. Instead, with makeup, animatronics, and robotics, the four-time Oscar-winning pioneer, who died Sunday at 62, persuaded film-goers to believe in a relentless Terminator, a razor-fingered Edward Scissorhands and a ravenous T-Rex in Jurassic Park.

His latest multiplex marvel: Robert Downey Jr.’s metal suit in Ironman.

Winston, who died in Los Angeles after a seven-year struggle with multiple myeloma, a blood cancer, never considered his handiwork to be merely effects. “I do characters” he once explained. “I do creatures.”

And the frequent collaborator of such elite directors as Steven Spielberg, Tim Burton, and James Cameron made sure that most, like the 14-foor alien queen in 1986’s Aliens or the dreadlocked reptilian from 1987’s Predator, had as much of an impact on the audiences as such human stars as Arnold Schwarzenegger.

“Special effects, by themselves, don’t mean diddly squat in a movie,” Winston said while promoting 1997’s Jurassic Park: The Lost World. “If the characters I create can’t perform, can’t act and aren’t interesting, it just isn’t going to work.”

The native of Richmond, VA; studied painting and sculpture at the University of Virginia and headed to Hollywood in 1969. When an acting career didn’t pan out, he joined Walt Disney Studios as an apprentice in the makeup department.

He would go on to run his own effects studio after making an Emmy-worthy splash by aging 40-year-old actress Cicely Tyson into a 110-year-old witness to America’s racial struggle in 1974’s The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman.

Like many innovators, the 10-time Academy Award Nominee was wise enough to learn from his errors, such as his first attempt at a gorilla in 1995’s sub par Congo. “The next thing I did was a movie called Instinct (1999), with Anthony Hopkins, which I think was the best gorillas I’ve ever seen on film, and I could never have done that movie if I had not made mistakes in Congo”

Unfortunately, Instinct is mostly forgotten – a fate that isn’t likely to befall Winston and his well-crafted creatures.

CrimsonGhostbuster
When my workwife told me this today, I was unbelievably bummed… then I had to school a co-worker of his work… she'd seen nothing he's done at all. (*egon)

JamesCGamora
I couldn't believe it either. To me the man seemed as immortal as his creations.