We are sad to announce that UVA grad Stan Winston—a renowned makeup, creature- and visual-effects wizard whose work on Aliens, Terminator 2: Judgment Day and Jurassic Park earned him four Academy Awards—has died at the age of 62 from multiple myeloma. Winston was also a longtime supporter and board member of the Virginia Film Festival—and was honored by the festival in 1999. To support the festival one particular year, Winston donated a Velociraptor eyeball—from his work on the Jurassic Park movies.
"The entertainment industry has lost a genius and I lost one of my best friends," Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, of Terminator fame, said in a statement Monday. "Stan’s work and four Oscars speak for themselves and will live on forever."
In addition to those films, he is responsible for the badass 14-foot-tall Alien Queen in Aliens, the extraterrestrial walrus-like creature in Predator, the futuristic cyborgs in the Terminator movies, and the life-size dinosaurs in the Jurassic Park movies. Winston also created the makeup, scissors and blade appendages for Edward Scissorhands. Most recently, he and his team created the crystal skeletons for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and the suits for Iron Man and his 10-foot-tall super-villain the Iron Monger in Iron Man.