Rick Baker
MONSTER MAKER - RICK BAKER

Interview by Drew Turney

Baker with G&C magazine ©R.S. Rhine

It started with a simple decision and it changed a moviemaking craft forever. Director John Landis was doing a horror comedy as his follow up to frathouse smash Animal House (1978). Despite the laughs, he wanted his take on the classic Wolfman legend to look real – no cheesy cross fades between a scared looking Lon Chaney and a scared looking Lon Chaney wearing yak hair and plastic teeth. Landis wanted An American Werewolf in London to show a man turning into a wolf in living, livid colour. Then 30-year old make-up artist and creature designer Rick Baker was already making some waves in Hollywood. Friends with effects whizzes Dennis Muren and Ken Ralston, he'd created most of the creatures in the Star Wars cantina scene that made it so iconic...