reputation for being able to create illusions grew, projects continued to roll in. Aside from work on horror movies such as The Bat People, Drac- ula’s Dog and Dead & Buried, Winston became known as the “old age” guy, winning an Emmy Award for his age-accelerating makeups on ac- tress Cicely Tyson for her starring role in TV’s The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman. Then, after working on the critically acclaimed TV minis- eries Roots, he became known as the “African-American” makeup ex- pert, landing gigs on TV’s An Evening with Diana Ross and Sidney Lumet’s The Wiz. But genre films would prove to be Winston’s true call- ing, and in 1982 he was hired to create one of the most challenging ef- fects with which he’d ever been tasked: making a naked Barbara Hershey, who refused to be nude on camera, appear to be groped by an unseen force in Sidney J. Furie’s The Entity (RM#124). “Unlike a lot of the work Dad had done previously, he had to create a
subtle, totally hyper-realistic human body for The Entity,” explains Matt. “It wasn’t a creature or anything based in the element of fantasy; it had to exactly match a particular human body. Beyond that, he had to create a system to allow it to appear as if it were being fondled by invisible hands pressing all over her. The realism was a challenge. He basically had to invent a whole new life-casting approach. If he had life-cast Bar- bara on her back, it would’ve distorted her breasts and torso, so he cre- ated a swivelling table that would keep her upright so that her anatomy would remain as it needed to be.” Not too long after that, a young filmmaker with a highly ambitious
sci-fi script about a futuristic army of killer robots came knocking – an encounter that would forever cement Winston as an innovator in his field. “The Terminator came along and Dad had the great fortune of making
a lifelong friend in James Cameron, a genius designer in his own right, who had this wonderful premise for a robot very different from other robots in that you could see right through parts of it.” According to Matt, robots were strictly played by actors in suits prior
to the silver skeletal cyborgs in The Terminator – the designs for which were so reliant on negative space that it would have been impossible for them to be portrayed by even the most slender costumed performer. The dilemma ignited Winston’s knack for creative problem solving and illustrates how he consistently managed to push the science of special effects forward. “The artistry Dad and his team brought to that film was on a whole
new level,” he says proudly. “They literally machined, out of steel, hands and feet and plated with chrome all those parts using industrial tech- niques to make it look as real as possible. … One of Dad’s biggest strengths was finding the best person for the job. When certain chal- lenges would come up at the shop, he would put his feelers out to aero- space or theme park engineers. He was building real robots with these characters by pioneering actual robotic techniques.” It’s not surprising then that Winston developed a reputation for not
only pulling off elaborate effects but also for being someone who could breathe life and personality into his creations. The genius craftsmanship of Winston and his team was heralded for their groundbreaking work on genre classics such as John Carpenter’s The Thing, The Monster Squad, Predator, Edward Scissorhands, Interview With the Vampire, A.I.: Artificial Intelligence and, more recently, Iron Man. In addition, the studio earned Academy Awards for its contributions to Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Aliens and Jurassic Park. “He wasn’t just creating characters, he was creating massive
Monsters, Inc.: (clockwise from top) Actor/VFX artist Tom Woodruff, Jr. on the set of Pumpkinhead, Winston (second from left) gets waist-deep on The Monster Squad, the Predator, and Winston on the set of Terminator 2: Judgment Day.
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movie stars,” says Matt. “It was always about what is going to serve the story and what is going to make for an iconic character. You be- lieved these characters were real, more than just a monster with goo. … It’s wild, I remember Dad sketching the Predator in our living room, and here he is, this character like a Frankenstein that will last for generations. Dad came to California to be a movie star, and that didn’t work out, but he took that same intensity and put it into cre- ating characters whom he could vicariously watch become movie stars in their own way.” After directing second unit for Cameron on Aliens, Winston – who had received an offer to manage the special effects required for a script