Stan Winston, the legendary make-up artist and special effects craftsman, died yesterday at his home of multiple myeloma, which he had been struggling against for the past seven years. He was 62 years old.

It’s probably fair to say that if you’ve gone to any big-budgeted, blockbuster movies over the past 20 years (or checked any out on DVD or VHS), then you’ve seen the work of Stan Winston, as he’s been credited with creating the special effects and/or make-up for such seminal summer sagas as John Carpenter’s The Thing (1982), Tim Burton’s Edward Scissorhands (1990) and Batman Returns (1992), James Cameron’s Aliens(1986) and Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1992) and Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park (1993) and A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001).  Most recently, he contributed his talents to such high-profile projects as the upcoming fourth film in the Terminator franchise, Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins (which is slated for release in 2009) and this summer’s blockbuster Iron Man.

It’s should also be noted that Winston worked on a bunch of real turkeys, as well, but that didn’t stop his effects and make-up sequences from shining through. His creativity can be admired in such tanks as Michael Jackson and Nipsey Russell’s Scarecrow and Tin Man in The Wiz (1978), shiny robots Andy Kaufman and Bernadette Peters in Heartbeeps (1981), a disembodied hand scraping around town and seeking revenge in The Hand (1981), a quintet of demonic creatures of End of Days (1999), the gorillas of Congo(1995). These are some really bad films that feature some really outstanding work by Winston…at least, that’s what I think. Well, you tell me: Do you remember anything substantial about these movies apart from or do you remember Winston’s startling cosmetic appliances, make-up and effects?

Yeah, same here.