This past Sunday, June 15, marked the passing of Stanley Winston (Stan) due to cancer. He was 62 years old and left behind a wife and two children.

You might be asking who is Stan Winston and its a fair question. Many of the wizards behind the magic of Hollywood go unknown and unnamed except for a subtle mention in ending credits. Quite frankly, he was the single best special effects artist in the modern era and on the short list with Lon Chaney, Jr. as the best ever.

When we were growing up, my brother was essentially Mark Petrie (Salem’s Lot) or Chainsaw (Summer School). He was obsessed with monsters, gore, make-up effects, and the lot. We subscribed to two different special effects magazines, Fangoria being the best. In fact, I have a terrible story of when he tried to plastercast my face … but instead of using plaster … or covering my eyebrows and lashes … he just slopped on a bunch of pancake batter. You can imagine my growing horror when it dried into my eye lashes preventing me from opening my eyes. Surprisingly pancake batter seems to harden like adobe bricks.

So as the result of my brother’s eclectic career ambitions at an early age, I knew the names of all the FX guys and their modus operandi starting in the early 80s … Smith, Savini, Baker, etc. Stan Winston was clearly one of the best and his work immediately got him the attention of the big time directors and correspondingly more freedom and money to create his effects.

Some of the most iconic characters, monsters, and villains were produced by his shop and he carries 4 academy awards for his efforts. That’s one more than the great Spielberg if you’re counting.

Just check out this body of work: Terminator, Alien, and Predator. Among those movies, you have three of the most famous villains/creatures in movie history. But the list goes on and on: all Jurassic Park movies, AI, Constantine, Edward Scissorhands, Interview with a Vampire, Batman Returns. Hell, if you want to go way back he even did the Wiz, Roots, and Manimal. Yes, I said Manimal – greatest early 80s TV show behind the A-Team, the Incredible Hulk, the Six Million Dollar Man, and Sunday morning WWF … we’ll call it fifth.

He even did Iron Man and was working on the next Terminator (4th). Any five of these movies would be enough to put him into the rarefied air. He worked on about 50 movies throughout his career.

So if when you dream you see magic and fantasy or if you run from room to room in your house at night because you’re too scared of the monsters that might be waiting, then you owe a tip of your cap at the passing of Mr. Winston.