Stan Winston RIP

[Tez]

AICN Gives Tribute To STAN WINSTON - A Giant In The World Of Filmmaking Is Gone!

"Once more, updated with words from Fred Dekker, Stan Winston Studios' John Rosengrant (who had to work on T4 yesterday) and Josh Cragun, Stan's nephew.

Newly updated again with words from Rick Baker!

Newly updated below with words from Joe Dante!
Updated below with comments from Jon Favreau, Jonathan Liebesman and Frank Darabont!

Hey folks, Harry here... Incredibly I have never met Stan Winston. I have never spoken to Stan Winston. I've met just about everybody else in the Physical Effects world - but I have never had the honor to share time with Stan.

At 4am last night I received a text message on my phone: "Stan Winston Is Dead" - and it came from Director/Writer Michael Dougherty. I didn't see it, I was asleep. However, by the time I woke up - not only was Quint's story up, but I had 12 other emails from folks I know in the industry stating that Stan Winston was gone.

I called Quint to talk with him about it. Eric was upset that the mainstream press was obsessing over another rehab adventure - and felt that the mainstream press would never get this story right. He's been assembling comments from many of Stan's associates - but he asked me to reach out to Jim Cameron... Without a doubt, Stan's most iconic collaboration.

Jim just wrote me back - here's what he had to say:

Harry,

Thanks for doing what you're doing. You're right, the mainstream media won't get it. They don't understand the important stuff. They're too busy chasing young idiot celebrities around the rehab circuit.

Stan was a great man. I'm proud to have been his friend, and his collaborator on what for both of us, was some of our best work. We met in pre-production on Terminator in 1983, and quickly sized each other up as the kind of crazy son of a bitch that you wanted for a friend. We've stayed friends for over a quarter of a century, and would have been for much longer if he had not been cut down.

We've lost a great artist, a man who made a contribution to the cinema of the fantastic that will resound for a long long time. I don't need to list the indelible characters he and his team of artists brought to the screen. Readers of your site know them.

We all know Stan's work, the genius of his designs. But not even the fans necessarily know how great he was as a man. I mean a real man --- a man who knows that even though your artistic passion can rule your life, you still make time for your family and your friends. He was a good father, and he raised two great kids. His wife of 37 years, Karen, was with him in the beginning, helping him make plaster molds in their garage for low budget gigs on TV movies, and she was with him at the end.

He was a man of incredible humor. When I think of him I see him smiling, usually a goofy grin as he twists his glasses askew on his nose doing a Jerry Lewis impression. Never afraid to play the clown, because he knew his colleagues respected him. He lived life full throttle, in work and play. Like me he loved fast cars, and whenever one of us would get a new toy, the other had to drive it (a practice which was strained for few years after I skidded his brand new Porsche turbo, just off the boat from Stuttgart, into his garage and stopped a half inch from the back wall). We even went to formula racing school together. For the last ten years or so we rode motorcycles on Sundays with Arnold Schwarzenegger and some other friends, not every week but as many Sundays as we could. There was a comradeship that comes from starting out together, and never betraying the respect and trust of that friendship over the years, but always being there for each other, that the three of us have shared.

Stan and I founded Digital Domain together, and our friendship was never strained by being business partners. He always demonstrated incredible wisdom in business, because he knew people, and especially creative people. He inspired artists to pull together and work as a team, which is like herding cats, but it was perhaps his greatest talent. To lead by inspiration. His own team at Stan Winston Studios is the most stable in the business. His core guys have been with him literally since Terminator, 25 years. That's because they respected him so much, and because he made the work fun, even though it was hard. They would stay up all night busting their ass for him. They knew they would always be doing something cutting edge and challenging, and that he respected them enough to let them run with it. Though he could draw and sculpt as well as any of them, he never let his own talent eclipse theirs, because he knew that team building was the most important aspect of leadership. And that's what allowed them to create success after success for over two decades, and win 4 Oscars, among over 30 awards. A walk through Stan's studio gallery is a trip through the last two decades of fantasy cinema. Predators, Terminators, raptors, T-rexes, Edward Scissorhands himself and a hundred more. It hits you how great an impact he's had.

I spoke with Stan by phone Saturday morning, and apparently it was one of the last conversations he had. Incredibly, in retrospect, he was full of life, you'd never have known he was at death's door. We talked for a long time about all the fun times, and all the dragons we'd slain together. He said that once you've shown something is possible, everybody can do it. What was important was being first. Breaking new ground.

Well that's just what he did his whole career, and today's creature and character effects business uses the techniques he developed every single day. He inspired a generation of fantasy effects geeks, and his legacy will be found in their dreams up on the screens of the future, not just in the films he worked on directly.

I'm going to miss him, like I'd miss a brother. It's hard, almost unfathomable, to talk about him in the past tense. He was just one of those larger than life people that was so alive that you can't imagine them gone. But he is gone. I ask the fans to remember not just the work but the man.

Thanks for listening.

Jim out




Later tonight - Quint will be adding to this with comments from a good many associates - including Jon Favreau - and we're hoping to hear from Spielberg - as Stan's work with Steven is also legend. But while I never knew the man - I treasured his work. Check back later tonight for more.




Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. I have word out to half a dozen people now to add onto this tribute to the Great Stan Winston. Below you'll find three filmmakers whose lives were touched by Winston in either friendship, professional collaboration or both. Continue to check back. As we get more of these in we'll update it.

First up is Jon Favreau, who has worked with Winston twice as a director:

He was a giant. I was blessed to have known him. I worked with him on both Zathura and Iron Man. He was experienced and helped guide me while never losing his childlike enthusiasm. He was the king of integrating practical effects with CGI, never losing his relevance in an ever changing industry. I am proud to have worked with him and we were looking forward to future collaborations. I knew that he was struggling, but I had no idea that he would be gone so soon. Hollywood has lost a shining star.

Next we have Jonathan Liebesman who worked with Winston on DARKNESS FALLS, a troubled film from the beginning, but Winston acted like a life preserver keeping the young Liebesman afloat in the storm of that production. Here's his Jonathan Liebesman:
Hey Eric,

I guess I would just say that on my first film when I was a 25 year old first time director, Stan Winston would call me "boss". That nod of support fuelled me through any tough times on the movie. Whenever I'd go to his shop to visit the guys working on my film, Stan would always walk up to me and shake my hand to greet me with a "you like what you see, boss?". His attitude was so empowering to me. I was amazed that even if you weren't Cameron or Spielberg, a legend like Stan would treat you with the same respect he'd give those guys. They say to be careful when you meet someone you idolize because your idol always disappoint you. Not this time. Stan supported me and I will always be grateful to him and wish I could've worked with him one last time.

Jon

And the last one I have for you at this moment is Frank Darabont. I'll let Frank speak for himself:
I'm still reeling from the news. Losing Stan is a real blow for me, as I'm sure it is for a lot of people who loved his work. He was clearly a genius in his field. He and I talked about working together for years, but we never found the project to make it happen.

Stan was one of those people it was impossible not to like. I met him around the time of Eraser. Back then Schwarzenegger was always throwing these dinners at his restaurant in Santa Monica?lots of food, wine, and cigars. And because Stan and I were fans of each other?s work, we?d often wind up sitting together. We?d trade stories, talk movies, and laugh our asses off. Stan was a fantastic dinner companion, a real raconteur, and one of the most affable guys you'd ever meet. He was brimming with enthusiasm that was genuine. As revered an industry figure as he was, he was still basically the kid who loved movies and broke into the business for the magic of it, and he never let go of that attitude. Though the business itself can grind you down, it never jaded him or diminished his joy for the creative side of what we do. He simply loved movies too much to allow that. That impressed me enormously about him.

One of the blessings of being in movies is when you meet icons whose work you deeply admire and they turn out to be fantastic people. They?re the ones you?re honored to encounter along the way, the people who are kind and gracious and inspiring in addition to being superbly talented. They exhibit genuine humanity and touch your heart in various ways, and you foolishly figure they?ll always be around to get to know better as the years go on. But then they are taken far too soon, and you?re left with the deep and lasting regret of not having gotten to know them nearly as well as you?d wanted or expected to. I?ve met and lost a number of extraordinary people who fall into this category, among them Roddy McDowell, John Frankenheimer, Sidney Pollack, Dave Stevens, and John Alvin. Stan Winston now sadly joins my list.

The best way to sum up Stan is to share my best memory of him. I?ll never forget how excited and honored we both felt the day we participated in presenting a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame to our mutual childhood hero, Ray Harryhausen. Stan and I spent the afternoon on a ?pinch-me-because-I-must-be-dreaming? high. We kept pulling each other aside and muttering things like: ?Wow, can you believe we?re here? Can you believe we get to do this? Isn?t this the coolest thing ever?? In short, we spent the day geeking out like a couple of giddy kids. Whenever I think of Stan, I?ll think of his joy and his childlike enthusiasm that day.

Thanks to all that have come out and spoken up for Winston so far. If you had the chance to know the man or work with him, we'd love to hear from you. Director, effects, make-up, actor, producer, colleague, whomever. Of course I'd love to hear from Tom Woodruff and Alec Gillis, Schwarzenegger, John Carpenter (Stan worked with Bottin on THE THING), Joe Dante, Steven Spielberg and Tim Burton to name a few specifics, but honestly anybody who knew Stan and can offer his fans a glimpse at who he was, let us posthumously meet him as it were is what we're going for. Please email your thoughts to quint@aintitcool.com or harry@aintitcool.com and we'll include it in.

Like I said above, keep checking back for more insight into Stan Winston. We should have more coming in over the next few days, including a promised piece from MONSTER SQUAD director Fred Dekker.






Quint here. I'm hitting the sack for the night... I'll see what's in the inboxes when I wake in the morning (I've gotten word that Richard Taylor will contribute soon), but this just came in... words from Joe Dante on the late, great Stan Winston:
Although Stan was prematurely gray, he always exuded so much youthful enthusiasm that he never seemed much older than 20, making today's sad news all the harder to accept.

Like many of us who began as monster kids, he was eternally excited to be part of the movie business, even after becoming one of the major names in his field.

I met Stan at Amblin when he was doing GOONIES, where he was providing a giant octopus that eventually got cut from the movie, and I admired his direction of PUMPKINHEAD, but we didn't really get the chance to work together until SMALL SOLDIERS, for which his studio provided most of the designs for the various living toys. The level of detail that went into the creation of these figures and their on-set animation was prodigious, and subject to lots of trial and error. How much was to be accomplished on-set and how much would be ceded to ILM's CGI artists was in constant flux. In the end the scale tilted more toward ILM than any of us had expected, but Stan and his guys were totally on board with whatever was best for the picture.

But that was Stan's ethos.

Whatever worked and made everybody look good.

One less artist and a major loss for all of us.

Rest in peace, Stan, with the knowledge you made a difference in the world you loved best.

Joe Dante





"Moriarty" here. I'm still reeling from this one myself. I had several opportunities to visit Stan's shop over the years, and that amazing showroom of his. I always found him to be charming and friendly and really welcoming as a person, and of course, he was a master artisan. I'm deeply moved by what Rick Baker sent us, one master's salute to another, and here it is for you guys:

Such sad news. I arrive in England after flying all of Sunday night, get to my hotel, go to bed, get up and go to work in the morning and find out that Stan Winston is gone.

I can't tell you how sad this makes me.

I just spoke with him a couple of weeks ago. I called to tell him how beautiful I thought his Iron Man was. I heard rumors that he was ill and spoke to him about that. He confirmed the fact that he had cancer but said, "Hey, I am still above ground".

We spoke about when I finished my work on in England about getting together and talking about the good old days.

Stan was bigger than life. The film industry is not going to be the same without Stan.

Stan took make-up effects out of the garage and made it a respectable business.

Stan was the first to make a nice clean beautiful shop for crew to work in. He treated his crew well, with respect and love.

My heart goes out to his family and his crew. I am sorry for their loss, his passing is a loss to us all.

It is hard to imagine the make-up effects industry without Stan. His presence will surely be missed.

I feel like it is the end of an era.


Quint back again, with three more pieces for this growing tribute to Stan Winston. We'll start with MONSTER SQUAD director Fred Dekker:
Imagine a world where you have no visual knowledge of the Terminator endoskeleton. What if you never saw the Alien Queen from Aliens? Take the T-Rex from Jurassic Park, and remove it from your memory banks. Johnny Depp as Edward Scissorhands? Gone. Not there. What kind of weird world would that be? My point is, this isn?t just fanboy stuff -- these are some of the most indelible, iconographic images in the history of motion pictures.

But putting that aside (and my belief that A.I. is one of the great achievements in all of genre cinema), my personal favorite Stan story was one night when we were shooting THE MONSTER SQUAD on the Warners backlot.

In the movie, there?s a tiny, throwaway shot that occurs right after Frankenstein's monster wallops Dracula and sends him flying onto a pointed metal cross. Except there was no walloping? and no "flying? either. It was all in the editing. There was a shot of Frank throwing a backhand -- then we see Drac "impaled". What I had storyboarded to sell it was a small, blink-if-you-miss-it, insert of the body actually hitting the cross. Any other director would have given it to the second unit.

But I was a newbie, and I had the entire first unit -- a full union crew standing by at 4:00 a.m. while Stan and I stood on a ladder with a Dracula dummy, literally THROWING it onto the cross with the camera three feet away. We?d throw it? and miss. Then try again. Close, but not quite. ?This is it,? we?d say. ?This is the one?. Then -- Doh! The dummy?s cape fell off.

In retrospect, here was a man who?s done every conceivable kind of screen makeup, from glamour to old-age stippling to werewolf appliances? an Oscar and Emmy winner who would later design and build not just fully articulated, human-sized animatronic robots, but fully articulated, literally DINOSAUR-sized robots. A virtuoso who worked with the biggest directors, created the biggest FX creatures, and worked on the biggest, most groundbreaking effects movies of all time.

But here?s what I remember: me and Stan, at four in the morning, throwing a dummy onto a spike just like when I was 12 years old in my backyard making 8mm movies with my friends. I?m sure the crew thought we were crazy. But man, the memory was worth it.

There's always been a part of me that stays a little kid at heart. And that night, I saw that part of him, too. He was having a ball ? even without gazillion dollar robots...

My second favorite Stan memory is from not that long ago. We had a meeting on a project for which he and the boys would have built me some creatures. He talked about how his creations aren't effects, but actors -- actors giving performances. I loved that idea, and it was great to be back in the sandbox with him, spit-balling like the old days. But the producers and I weren't entirely on the same page. Whether Stan knew this, I don?t know. But after the meeting, he took me aside and quietly encouraged me to stick with my vision, no matter what. Don?t be steamrolled, he said. Don?t compromise. To me that?s Stan Winston in a nutshell: Do it right, or don't do it.

I?ll miss his creations and their "performances?? and I?ll miss that goofy, mischievous smile. I hope you?re in a better place, Stan. Because this one is a little worse without you.

Next up is John Rosengrant, from the set of TERMINATOR: SALVATION, a man who has worked with Stan since the first Terminator and had to continue working through news of his mentor's passing.
It's 3am here in New Mexico and I'm supervising Terminator 4 Salvation for Stan and just finished one of the toughest days in my life.It was extra tough not only that I lost my mentor, who taught me this business and great lessons in life, but we had to perform tonight. The old show biz saying" the show must go on" came true and the team and I had to make Stan proud....to bring our characters to life, and keep it all together.

I have been blessed to have worked for Stan for the last 25 years ,my first feature with Stan being the first Terminator.It has been an unbelievable opportunity, an incredible ride. It's a ride, we the team will continue, just as he wanted.Stan never lost his love for this business, always wanted to break that new ground ,give the audience what they had never seen before, and to the highest artistic standards.

As a person Stan was caring and generous. It breaks my heart that he is gone. The out pouring from the fans is very touching.... you all obviously loved him as much as we all did at Stan Winston Studio.We'll miss you Stan.

John

And then there's Josh Cagun, giving us our first look at Stan from inside the family. We'll continue posting these as long as we keep getting stories, so please keep checking back.
Heya Quint,

Many of you knew Stan Winston as an incredible artist. I knew him as Uncle Stan.

I was just reading through the various tributes to my uncle on your website, and I was impressed with the sheer number of people that felt compelled to express their grief and condolences. I just wish all of his fans could have had the chance to know him personally. We lost so much more than an astounding make-up artist and CGI Wizard, we lost one of the truly great men of our age.

I've known Stan was really sick for quite some time now, but the last time I saw him he was so full of life and love it seemed impossible that he really was sick. Now it seems impossible that he is gone. It was clear that he was in pain, but he hid it well, I think, so those around him wouldn't worry about him. That's just the kind of man he was.

I had the opportunity to speak with Stan, one on one, several times during my last visit to California, just the two of us cruising around the hills of Malibu in one or another of his fast cars. He drove like a maniac, of course, but if you knew him, you know there was no other option. Honestly, having Stan as an uncle never seemed real. Here was a man who was wildly succesful and famous. He was intimate friends with the whose who of Hollywood. He was lauded as the very best in his industry and he was an academy award winner. Despite all of that, he was one of the most genuine, humble, and sincere people I've ever had the pleasure of knowing. During the last conversation I had with Stan, he expressed how thankful and grateful he was for his success. He was truly grateful he had been allowed to make a career doing something that he loved so much. I think we all appreciate the fact that Stan loved his work so much, because he truly was amazing at his craft. He touched lives the world over, giving people nightmares and inspiring them to become artists at the same time.

During that same conversation Stan spoke to me for the first and only time of his illness. He told me he had enjoyed his life, maybe a little too much, but the one thing he truly regretted was that his health was failing to the point where he knew he wouldn't be around too much longer. He so very badly wanted to see his grandchildren grow up, to be there with his wife and kids. It was painfully obvious how much Stan loved his family. It always has been. Despite the fame and fortune and the star on the hollywood walk of fame, Stan Winston was a family man first. He loved his family, and they loved him.

These words here do little justice to the great legacy that is Stan Winston, but hopefully the next time you watch a dinosaur smash a car, or see a terminator walking down the street, you will remember a man who loved his work, loved life, and loved his family. He will be missed.

With love,

Josh- "

Sad news indeed....

tEz

[one eyed jack]

What can I say..He is the man responsible for some of the effects to some of my favourite movies Aliens, Predator and much more.

The man is a legend

Stan Winston I salute you sir.

Rest In Peace.

[Pervert]

Amen to that.