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Stuart Freeborn @ 98.

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British make-up artist crafted Star Wars creatures and worked with Kubrick on 2001: A Space Odyssey

Stuart Freeborn, the British pioneering movie makeup artist behind creatures such as Yoda and Chewbacca in the Star Wars films, has died. He was 98.

LucasFilm confirmed Wednesday that Freeborn had died, "leaving a legacy of unforgettable contributions".

Star Wars director George Lucas said in a statement that Freeborn was "already a makeup legend" when he started working on the space epic.

Freeborn's six-decade career led him to work on many classics, including Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey.

He began his film career in the 1930s, working for the Hungarian-born director Alexander Korda and honing his makeup skills on stars including Marlene Dietrich and Vivien Leigh.

After air force service during the second world war he worked on British cinema classics including The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp and David Lean's 1948 version of Oliver Twist. His transformation of Alec Guinness into Fagin complete with a large hooked nose was criticised by some as antisemitic, a matter of regret for Freeborn, who said he was partly Jewish.

Freeborn later worked with Kubrick, transforming Peter Sellers into multiple characters for Doctor Strangelove before designing the apes for the Dawn of Man sequence, in which primates react to a mysterious monolith, Kubrick's Space Odyssey.

He will likely be best remembered for his work on Star Wars creating characters such as the 7ft tall wookie Chewbacca and the slug-like Jabba the Hutt.

LucasFilm said Irvin Kershner, who directed The Empire Strikes Back, would "note that Freeborn quite literally put himself into Yoda, as the Jedi master's inquisitive and mischievous elfin features had more than a passing resemblance to Freeborn himself". Yoda's looks were also said to be partly inspired by Albert Einstein.

Nick Maley, a make-up artist who worked with Freeborn in the 1970s, called him a mentor who "ran his department like a headmaster".

"Everybody will remember him for Star Wars but he did so much more than that. No one should overlook the groundbreaking work he did on 2001: A Space Odyssey. That was really the forerunner of Star Wars and used a lot of the same technology."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2013/...oda-maker-dies