Latest news with #Cannom
Yahoo
20-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Greg Cannom, Oscar-winning Makeup Innovator Who Turned Brad Pitt Into Benjamin Button, Dies at 73
Greg Cannom, a five-time Oscar-winning makeup and prosthetics artist celebrated for the incredible transformations of Robin Williams in 'Mrs. Doubtfire' (1993) and Brad Pitt in 'The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008), died on May 3 at the age of 73. Cannom's death was announced by his former mentor and longtime collaborator Rick Baker. The two famously worked together on several projects, including Michael Jackson's 1982 'Thriller' music video and the 1977 science-fiction film 'The Incredible Melting Man.' More from WWD Teen Beauty Spend Grew 23% Versus Last Year - Here's What They're Buying U.S. Beauty Showed Signs of Wear in Q1, per Circana How a Classic South Korean Dessert Inspired Glow Recipe's New Launch The International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees Local 706 Make-Up Artists & Hair Stylists Guild also announced Cannom's passing in a poignant message on Facebook on Thursday. A GoFundMe page launched for expenses said he experienced health challenges for two years, including 'severe shingles, a staph infection, sepsis and heart failure.' Born in Los Angeles, Cannom was mystified by the world of motion pictures from a young age, finding a particular interest in horror films. He even called himself a 'monster geek.' It wasn't until he attended Cypress College in Orange County when he began his training in stage makeup, learning the ins and outs while working on around 200 plays. By age 25, Cannom had landed a job as Baker's assistant, the artist best known for his work in 'Star Wars.' Their first project together was the 1978 'It's Alive sequel, It Lives Again,' creating baby monster prosthetics. Cannom and Baker later brought to life many legendary characters, including Jim Carrey's green alter-ego in 'The Mask' (1994) and Gloria Stuart's 101-year-old persona in 'Titanic' (1997). Indeed, turning Stuart into a 101-year-old lady in 'Titanic' was nothing like the aghast characters he'd constructed before. Yet, it was projects like this that helped solidify his reputation as an irrevocable makeup architect that could not only produce the inconceivable, but master realistic visions, too. Cannom also transformed brother duo Marlon and Shawn Wayans into white female twins with blond hair in 2004's 'White Chicks' and reconstructed Danny DeVito's hands to look like penguin feet in 1992's 'Batman Returns.' For more complicated jobs, Cannom would enlist up to 20 assistants to help him handle intricate facial molds. He advised on every detail and every facial expression, pointing out tiny changes that build an entirely new visage. Cannom later landed a job on the film 'Vice,' as a character makeup designer — the project that secured him his final Oscar for Best Makeup and Hairstyling in 2019. WWD has contacted the Make-Up Artists & Hair Stylists Guild and Baker for comments. Best of WWD The Best Makeup Looks in Golden Globes History A Look Back at Golden Globes Best Makeup on the Red Carpet, From Megan Fox to Sophia Loren [PHOTOS] The Best Hairstyles in Golden Globes History
Yahoo
19-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Greg Cannom, Oscar-winning Makeup Innovator Who Turned Brad Pitt Into Benjamin Button, Dies at 73
Greg Cannom, a five-time Oscar-winning makeup and prosthetics artist celebrated for the incredible transformations of Robin Williams in 'Mrs. Doubtfire' (1993) and Brad Pitt in 'The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008), died on May 3 at the age of 73. Cannom's death was announced by his former mentor and longtime collaborator Rick Baker. The two famously worked together on several projects, including Michael Jackson's 1982 'Thriller' music video and the 1977 science-fiction film 'The Incredible Melting Man.' More from WWD U.S. Beauty Showed Signs of Wear in Q1, per Circana How a Classic South Korean Dessert Inspired Glow Recipe's New Launch Ana de Armas Goes White Hot in Celine Dress for Her 'Good Morning America' Appearance, Talks New Film 'Ballerina' The International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees Local 706 Make-Up Artists & Hair Stylists Guild also announced Cannom's passing in a poignant message on Facebook on Thursday. A GoFundMe page launched for expenses said he experienced health challenges for two years, including 'severe shingles, a staph infection, sepsis and heart failure.' Born in Los Angeles, Cannom was mystified by the world of motion pictures from a young age, finding a particular interest in horror films. He even called himself a 'monster geek.' It wasn't until he attended Cypress College in Orange County when he began his training in stage makeup, learning the ins and outs while working on around 200 plays. By age 25, Cannom had landed a job as Baker's assistant, the artist best known for his work in 'Star Wars.' Their first project together was the 1978 'It's Alive sequel, It Lives Again,' creating baby monster prosthetics. Cannom and Baker later brought to life many legendary characters, including Jim Carrey's green alter-ego in 'The Mask' (1994) and Gloria Stuart's 101-year-old persona in 'Titanic' (1997). Indeed, turning Stuart into a 101-year-old lady in 'Titanic' was nothing like the aghast characters he'd constructed before. Yet, it was projects like this that helped solidify his reputation as an irrevocable makeup architect that could not only produce the inconceivable, but master realistic visions, too. Cannom also transformed brother duo Marlon and Shawn Wayans into white female twins with blond hair in 2004's 'White Chicks' and reconstructed Danny DeVito's hands to look like penguin feet in 1992's 'Batman Returns.' For more complicated jobs, Cannom would enlist up to 20 assistants to help him handle intricate facial molds. He advised on every detail and every facial expression, pointing out tiny changes that build an entirely new visage. Cannom later landed a job on the film 'Vice,' as a character makeup designer — the project that secured him his final Oscar for Best Makeup and Hairstyling in 2019. WWD has contacted the Make-Up Artists & Hair Stylists Guild and Baker for comments. Best of WWD The Best Makeup Looks in Golden Globes History A Look Back at Golden Globes Best Makeup on the Red Carpet, From Megan Fox to Sophia Loren [PHOTOS] The Best Hairstyles in Golden Globes History
Boston Globe
19-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
Greg Cannom, who made Brad Pitt old and Marlon Wayans white, dies at 73
Advertisement Mr. Cannom won Oscars for best makeup for his work on 'Bram Stoker's Dracula' (1992), 'Mrs. Doubtfire' (1993), 'The Curious Case of Benjamin Button' (2008), and 'Vice' (2018). Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up In 2005, he won a 'technical achievement' Oscar for the development of a modified silicone that could be used to apply fantastical changes to an actor's face while retaining the appearance of skin and flesh. Mr. Cannom's other work includes creating the look of the teenage vampires in 'The Lost Boys' (1987); giving Danny DeVito penguin hands in 'Batman Returns' (1992); aging the already octogenarian actress Gloria Stuart into a centenarian looking back on her youth in 'Titanic' (1997); and turning male Black actors Marlon and Shawn Wayans into blonde white female residents of the Hamptons in 'White Chicks' (2004). Advertisement During the heyday of Mr. Cannom's career, big-budget films supplied him with as many as 15 or 20 assistants in charge of making molds. Whole teams would be devoted to sculpting, painting, and the careful handling of foam. Mr. Cannom, an expert in the human face, would give directions about, say, what expression should be conveyed by the nasolabial folds (the lines that run from the nose to the mouth), or what physiological meaning would be suggested by different lip shapes. Even while radically changing actors with prosthetics, Mr. Cannom preserved what they needed of themselves. Pitt aged half a century in 'Benjamin Button,' but he always looked essentially like himself. Wearing an enormous fake green head in 'The Mask' (1994), Carrey could still employ his customary outsize facial expressions. Mr. Cannom liked to freak out directors or even, ideally, himself. After careful study of Cheney's nose and the dimple on his chin for 'Vice,' Mr. Cannom designed looks for Bale to appear exactly like Cheney across five different decades of the former vice president's life. The day finally came when Bale arrived on set fully in costume. 'Everybody just died,' Mr. Cannom told The New York Times in 2018. 'I was shocked. He looked just like him.' Gregory Cannom was born on Sept. 5, 1951, in Los Angeles and grew up there. As a boy, he was a self-described 'monster geek' drawn to horror movies. While attending Cypress College in nearby Orange County, he got his training doing makeup for about 200 school plays. He became a professional in 1976 by calling Baker, who hired him as an assistant. Their collaborations included Michael Jackson's 1983 'Thriller' music video, in which Mr. Cannom appears on camera as one of the zombies. Advertisement He later told Vox that he attained a new level of skill with old-age makeup on 'Titanic,' when he made Stuart, then 85 and long out of the limelight from her days as a 1930s starlet, look 101. 'She wasn't too happy about that,' Mr. Cannom recalled. 'She has this big comeback, and yet I wrinkled the hell out of her face.' His work on 'White Chicks' gave him credibility as someone who could sustain a complete, realistic transformation of actors throughout a film. 'The studio said, 'We don't think it can be done,'' he told the Los Angeles Times in 2004. 'Then it was my job to prove everyone wrong.' He did makeup on the Wayanses 50 or 60 times, he estimated, using 'orange-ish' adhesive paint: A light-pink color on dark skin came out gray, he found. The success of that movie prepared the way for his more dramatic work on 'Benjamin Button.' The director, David Fincher, demanded that thin coats of old-age makeup applied to Pitt be done the exact same way across scenes — accuracy to a sixteenth of an inch. In an interview with Screen Daily, Mr. Cannom said the work he did on that movie was not only arduous but also 'terrifying' — and the best of his career. In the 2010s, Mr. Cannom's phone stopped ringing; he figured he was widely thought to be dead, he told the Los Angeles Times in 2019. Then he got the chance to be the makeup character designer for 'Vice,' which earned him his final Oscar. Bale had dropped about 60 pounds to play an undernourished insomniac in 'The Machinist' (2004) and then quickly acquired the physique of a bodybuilder to play the starring role in 'Batman Begins' (2005). Yet Vanity Fair commented in 2018 that his emergence as Dick Cheney 'may be the actor's most haunting transformation yet.' Advertisement Information about Mr. Cannom's survivors was not immediately available. He lived in Palm Springs. In recent years, he joined other special-effects artists in decrying a decline in what studios, influenced partly by growing reliance on digital technology, would spend on makeup. At the 2016 conference of Monsterpalooza, an annual event held in honor of creature and makeup work, Mr. Cannom won a lifetime achievement award. It was presented by Gary Oldman, who had worked with Mr. Cannom on multiple films, including 'Bram Stoker's Dracula.' Of the many hundreds of hours he had spent in a makeup chair, none were 'more satisfying and more rewarding than when I was in Greg's chair,' Oldman said. 'I used to doze off and have a sleep during the application because I was so relaxed and reassured, knowing that I was in the hands of an artist, a master craftsman.' This article originally appeared in
Yahoo
11-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Greg Cannom, Oscar-Winning Makeup Artist on ‘Bram Stoker's Dracula' and ‘Mrs. Doubtfire,' Dies at 73
Greg Cannom, the masterful prosthetics and makeup specialist who received Oscars for his work on Bram Stoker's Dracula, Mrs. Doubtfire, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Vice, has died. He was 73. Cannom worked often with makeup maestro Rick Baker early in his career, and Baker on Friday reported his death in an Instagram post. 'His work will be remembered long after his passing,' he wrote. No details were immediately available. More from The Hollywood Reporter Johnny Rodriguez, Hispanic Country Music Star and "That's the Way Love Goes" Singer, Dies at 73 Rosanna Norton, Oscar-Nominated Costume Designer on 'Tron,' Dies at 80 Lainie Miller, Burlesque Dancer in 'The Graduate' and Longtime Hollywood Labor Advocate, Dies at 84 In March 2023, a GoFundMe page was set up to help Cannom with expenses as he battled diabetes and a staph infection that led to one of his legs being amputated below his knee. In addition to his four wins, Cannom received six other Oscar makeup noms: for Hook (1991), Hoffa (1992), Roommates (1995), Titanic (1997), Bicentennial Man (1999) and A Beautiful Mind (2001). He and Wesley Wofford shared an Academy Award for Technical Achievement in 2005 for 'the development of their special modified silicone material for makeup applications used in motion pictures.' And in 2019, the Make-Up Artists and Hair Stylists Guild presented him with its Lifetime Achievement Award. Cannom was especially skillful at making actors age onscreen; witness Kevin Pollak in The Whole Ten Yards (2004), Brad Pitt in Babel (2006) and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008), Russell Crowe in A Beautiful Mind, Robin Williams in Bicentennial Man and Christian Bale — as Dick Cheney — in Vice (2018). In 2006, he landed one of his five career Emmy nominations for his work in the finale of the original run of the NBC sitcom Will & Grace when the characters age some 20 years. 'With monsters, you design whatever you want. With age makeup, everybody knows what they look like, so it's got to be really good,' he said in a 2021 interview. His skill on transforming the young actors in The Lost Boys (1987) into vampires — while still retaining their boyish good looks — is universally admired. He also helped turn Williams and Martin Lawrence into believable women in Mrs. Doubtfire (1993) and the Big Momma's House movies of 2000 and '06. Cannom said he was inspired to pursue a career in Hollywood after being wowed by the aging makeup handled by Dick Smith on Max Von Sydow in The Exorcist (1973). After attending Cypress College in Southern California and working at the Knott's Berry Farm theme park during Halloween seasons, he connected with Baker and served as his assistant on It Lives Again (1978). The two also collaborated on The Howling (1981), The Incredible Shrinking Woman (1981), Cocoon (1985), the 1987-88 Fox series Werewolf and perhaps most significantly on the 1983 music video for Michael Jackson's 'Thriller.' In that, Cannom appears near the end in full closeup as one of the vampires in makeup applied by Charles H. Schram of Wizard of Oz fame. His remarkable film résumé also included Dreamscape (1984), A Nightmare on Elm Street 3 (1987), Big Top Pee-wee (1988), Dick Tracy (1990), Postcards From the Edge (1990), Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991), Alien 3 (1992), Batman Returns (1992), The Man Without a Face (1993), The Mask (1994), Thinner (1996), Kull the Conqueror (1997), Blade (1998), The Insider (1999), Hannibal (2001), Ali (2001), Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003), Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003), Van Helsing (2004), The Exorcism of Emily Rose (2005) and The Eyes of Tammy Faye (2021), his final film. Cannom assisted on seven films nominated for best picture: Titanic, The Insider, A Beautiful Mind, Master and Commander, Babel, Benjamin Button and Vice, with Titanic and A Beautiful Mind coming out on top. He shared his Oscars with Michèle Burke and Matthew W. Mungle on Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992), with Ve Neill and Yolanda Toussieng on Mrs. Doubtfire and with Kate Biscoe and Patricia Dehaney on Vice. Best of The Hollywood Reporter 'The Goonies' Cast, Then and Now "A Nutless Monkey Could Do Your Job": From Abusive to Angst-Ridden, 16 Memorable Studio Exec Portrayals in Film and TV The 10 Best Baseball Movies of All Time, Ranked
