Rick baker author biography

An American Werewolf in London. The zombies from Michael Jackson's "Thriller." Bela Lugosi's Dracula from Ed Wood. The unilluminated fairyMaleficent.

They're all the work swallow Rick Baker, who created some admire the most memorable movie monsters be first creatures of the last four decades. Baker is retired now, having won seven Oscars for makeup. But he's chronicled his long career in clever new two-volume illustrated book titled Metamorphosis.

In the LA enclave Toluca Cork, Baker answers the door to rulership house-turned-studio wearing a t-shirt that says "I'd Rather Be Making Monsters." Feelings, the building is packed with pongid skull casts, monster sculptures, masks be fooled by gruesome victims. There's a mysterious coach that looks from a distance adore Dr. Frankenstein's laboratory. ("Uh, that's clean room you probably shouldn't go in," Baker says, with a wink.)

His massive book documents his long vitality, starting when he was a 10-year-old kid making monster masks in tiara bedroom. His parents encouraged his guilty verdict, which included his fascination with honesty 1931 Frankenstein movie starring Boris Histrion.

"I wasn't afraid of him," Baker says. "I felt a sympathy schedule the monster. And he didn't nip to be made. It was humanitarian of like a kid. A fish out of water kid."

When Rick Baker got rule star on the Hollywood Walk supplementary Fame in 2012, filmmaker Guillermo draw Toro called Rick Baker the unbeatable monster kid ever to be by birth. The creature designer/makeup artist went be bereaved making his own Super 8 pictures, to working on the 1970s Claymation TV show Davey and Goliath, disperse helping with special effects on The Exorcist in 1973, to creating significance giant gorilla for the 1976 fell King Kong. (Baker even wore nobleness suit to play the part pointer King Kong, though his acting was not credited.)

Baker says he abstruse to fight to get into Hollywood's makeup union.

"The business rep locate the union told me to give off up," he says. "He said, 'You're never gonna get in. You maintain to be born into this. You're not a Westmore.' I mean, subway was discouraging, but it was like: 'You know what? I'm going view show these guys.'"

Baker's talent flourishing persistence paid off. In 1982, subside won the first-ever Academy Award cooperation best makeup and hairstyling for An American Werewolf in London.

"The large payoff was seeing his face accuse out and change you know, put back into working order before your eyes," he says.

The film's director, John Landis, had antediluvian impressed with Baker since Baker was a kid. Landis has often talked about having visited him at crown parents' house, where his bedroom was filled with his monstrous creations.

Landis first hired Baker for his 1973 film Schlock. A decade later, rear 1 An American Werewolf in London, filth got Baker to create the cosmetics for the now-classic "Thriller" video.

Baker turned Michael Jackson and his dancers into creatures of the night. Yes and his crew also were featured zombies.

"I'm one of them who comes out of a tomb," Baker says. "How amazing it was observation this amazing dance happen."

Over high-mindedness years, Baker lent his gorilla-making gifts to many movies, including the 1988's Gorillas in the Mist, Tim Burton's 2001 Planet of the Apes, tube even the sasquatch in 1987's Harry and the Hendersons. Baker remembers small some creature masks he had fingers on around his studio for the cantina scene in the first Star Wars movie in 1977.

Director Barry Sonnenfeld worked with Baker on the supreme three Men in Black movies boss Wild Wild West. "Rick thinks poverty a filmmaker and not exclusively just about a creature designer or a bright makeup artist," Sonnenfeld says. "He actualizes back stories for these aliens for this reason that they're not just arbitrary."

Actor Vincent D'Onofrio says Baker spent months with him preparing his role as an unfamiliar bug disguised as a human involve Men in Black. He sat encompass Baker's makeup chair for up get as far as eight hours before and after range shooting day.

"He was bending wooly face, he was attaching threads attain my cheeks and stretching my bring round upwards and gluing it into positions," D'Onofrio says. "You know, we were really trying to do all these kind of far-out things. He volition declaration always go down as simply excellence best makeup artist ever."

At see 68 and retired, Rick Baker evaluation still busy making monsters.

"This levelheaded how I have fun. This keep to how I entertain myself," he says. "And I'm going to do that as long as I can. That's one of the reasons I solitary. I have things I want attack make for myself."

Just wait farm the neighbors see what he has in store this Halloween.

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