SFx Legend Stan Winston, 62, Dies

Intriguing that today, of all days, I should update a posting on a special effects genius, the late John Chambers.

Now word comes in another great in the field, Stan Winston (above), 62, passed away, late Sunday, June 15, 2008, in Los Angeles, California. He died following a seven-year struggle with multiple myeloma.

His work is familiar to you. Winston created the title characters in Iron Man, The Terminator, Pumpkinhead, Predator, Aliens, as well as the monsters in Monster Squad, and the dinosaurs of Jurassic Park. He worked on other well-known movies, such as John Carpenter’s The Thing, The Bat People, Batman Returns, Congo, and Gargoyles. Stan Winston was responsible for the creature features of Lake Placid, one of my favorites because of its crocodile angle in Maine. I’m sure there must have been a Sasquatch or Yeti in the creative mix, too.

Winston won four visual effects Oscars and earned multiple nominations. His first Oscar was for James Cameron’s Aliens (1986). Winston later won two Oscars for Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1992) and 1993’s Jurassic Park.

Winston idolized those who came before him in the field, like Ray Harryhausen, and sought to make his own iconography, inspiring yet more to follow in his lead.

“Stan contributed to some of the greatest — fantastic movie characters in motion picture history,” Phil Tippett, who shared a visual effects Oscar with Winston on Jurassic Park, told The Los Angeles Times. “His loss is a great one and he will be missed.”

Stan Winston was born on April 7, 1946, in Richmond, Virginia, and is only the second special effects artist to be honored with a star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame.

Stan’s son, Matt, is an actor, possibly best known for his role as Temporal Agent Daniels on “Star Trek: Enterprise.”

Loren Coleman About Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct). Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015. Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.

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