View source for Dick Smith (make-up artist)


{{other people | Dick Smith }}
{{Infobox person
| name = Dick Smith
| image = Richard Emerson Smith (cropped).jpg
| imagesize = 
| caption = Smith in 2009
|birth_name=Richard Emerson Smith
| birth_date = {{Birth date|1922|6|26}}
| birth_place = [[Larchmont, New York]], U.S.
| death_date = {{death date and age|2014|7|30|1922|6|26}}  
| death_place=[[Los Angeles, California]], U.S.
| occupation = [[Special make-up effects]] artist
| years_active = 1945–1999
| spouse = Jocelyn De Rosa (m. January 10, 1944)
| children = 2
}}
'''Richard Emerson Smith''' (June 26, 1922&nbsp;– July 30, 2014) was an American [[special make-up effects]] artist and author, (nicknamed "The Godfather of Make-Up")<ref name="Fowler">Fowler, Brandi; Marquina, Sierra (November 13, 2011). [http://www.eonline.com/news/oprah_winfrey_james_earl_jones_dick/274833 "Oprah Winfrey, James Earl Jones, & Dick Smith Receive Honorary Academy Awards"] [[E!]] Online.</ref> known for his work on such films as ''[[Little Big Man (film)|Little Big Man]]'' (1970), ''[[The Godfather]]'' (1972), ''[[The Exorcist]]'' (1973), ''[[Taxi Driver]]'' (1976), ''[[Scanners]]'' (1981) and ''[[Death Becomes Her]]'' (1992). He won a 1985 [[Academy Award for Best Makeup]] for his work on ''[[Amadeus (film)|Amadeus]]'' and received a 2012 [[Academy Honorary Award]] for his career's work.

==Early life==
Smith was born in [[Larchmont, New York]], the son of Coral (née Brown) and Richard Roy Smith.<ref name="Tomlinson">Doug Tomlinson [http://www.filmreference.com/film/22/Dick-Smith.html "Dick Smith Biography (1922–)"]. Film Reference. Retrieved October 2, 2012.</ref> He attended the [[Wooster School]] in Danbury, Connecticut and [[Yale University]], where he studied pre-med, with the intention of entering dentistry, although he majored in zoology.<ref name="Oscars2011">[https://www.oscars.org/governors-awards/2011/dick-smith "Dick Smith – Honorary Award"], Oscars.org, 2011</ref> After reading a book on theatrical make-up techniques<ref name="Appleyard">Rodney Appleyard [http://if.com.au/2008/08/27/article/Dick-Smith---The-Godfather-of-make-up/HAHVFWZDXI.html "Dick Smith – The Godfather of make-up"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160428143429/http://if.com.au/2008/08/27/article/Dick-Smith---The-Godfather-of-make-up/HAHVFWZDXI.html |date=2016-04-28 }}, ''Inside Film'', 28 August 2008</ref> titled ''Paint, powder and make-up ; the art of theater make-up from the amateur and class room viewpoint (Strauss, Ivard)'',<ref name="Yardley"/> he began applying make-up for the Yale drama group.<ref name="Oscars2011"/> After graduation, Smith served in the [[United States Army|U.S. Army]] during [[World War II]].<ref name="Yardley">[https://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/01/movies/dick-smith-dies-at-92-makeup-artist-of-vast-reach.html Dick Smith Dies at 92; Makeup Artist of Vast Reach] Yardley, William. ''[[The New York Times]]''. Retrieved August 1, 2014.</ref>

==Early career in television==
Smith entered the field full-time after the war, and was entirely self-taught. He sent photographs of his work to the film industry, but his work was rejected until his father suggested he might try the emerging new medium of television.<ref name="Thomas">{{cite news|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/23/AR2007112300444.html|title=Dick Smith, the Guy Who Changed the Face of Film|author=Nick Thomas |newspaper=[[The Washington Post]]| date=November 25, 2007}}</ref> He was appointed as the first make-up director of [[WNBC]] ([[National Broadcasting Company|NBC]]'s station in New York City), working there for fourteen years, often under producer [[David Susskind]].<ref name="Yardley"/> Smith pioneered the development of [[prosthetic makeup]], now better known as special make-up effects, from the basement of his home in [[Larchmont, New York]], a district in which he lived through most of his life.<ref name="Nelson"/> His colleagues though, he commented in a 2008 interview, "tended to be secretive. There was not at all that much make-up work in New York – and Hollywood might as well have been on another planet. They weren’t eager to share anything; and the union did its best to discourage whatever inclination there might have been."<ref name="Appleyard"/>

Prosthetic face masks were then normally made in one piece, but Smith made them in three foam latex pieces. Smith's technique allowed the actor to use their full range of facial expressions.<ref name="Barnes">Mike Barnes  [http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/dick-smith-dead-godfather-makeup-720160 "Dick Smith, The 'Godfather of Makeup,' Dies at 92"], ''Hollywood Reporter'', 31 July 2014</ref> Despite initial criticism from many professional make-up artists at the time, Smith's make-up techniques proved to be superior. The now standard methods of applying prosthetics to faces are those that Smith invented, according to Smith's protégé [[Rick Baker (makeup artist)|Rick Baker]] in a 2007 interview.<ref name="Thomas"/>

For a television adaptation of ''[[The Moon and Sixpence (1959 film)|The Moon and Sixpence]]'' (1959), Smith was required to turn [[Laurence Olivier]] into a leprosy victim: "When I finished the make-up, he looked in the mirror and said, 'Dick, it does the acting for me.' I've never forgotten his words."<ref name="Thomas"/> Other early work by Smith was seen on ''[[Way Out (TV series)|Way Out]]'' (1961), a short-lived supernatural syndicated clone of ''[[The Twilight Zone (1959 TV series)|Twilight Zone]]'', produced by Susskind in New York City, and hosted by [[Roald Dahl]]. Most memorable was a make-up of a man ([[Barry Morse]]) who had half of his face suddenly erased by a spilled vial of photo retouching fluid that affected real people when merely applied to their photos. In another ''Way Out'' episode, a ''[[The Hunchback of Notre-Dame|Hunchback of Notre-Dame]]'' make-up created by Smith becomes permanently affixed to an evil actor who then became his character and could never remove his make-up. Smith contributed to all 14 ''Way Out'' episodes, and other 1960s television shows as well.

In 1965, Smith published an instructional book, titled ''Dick Smith's Do-It-Yourself Monster Make-up Handbook'', a special edition of [[Forrest J Ackerman]]'s ''[[Famous Monsters of Filmland]]'' magazine series.

In 1967, Smith provided special make-up for two episodes of the [[supernatural]] [[soap opera]] ''[[Dark Shadows]]''; in the storyline, [[vampire]] [[Barnabas Collins]] (played by [[Jonathan Frid]])<ref name="Italie"/> was undergoing medical treatment to change him into a living human being. The experiment goes drastically wrong, and Barnabas ages rapidly, to the appearance of a man over 175 years old. Smith said that designing the make-up appliances for ''Dark Shadows'' "turned out to be valuable preparation for ''Little Big Man''."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://dicksmithmake-up.com/dicks-life-and-work/career-credits/dark-shadows-television-series-1967/|title=Dark Shadows, Television Series – 1967|last=Smith|first=Dick|work=Dick Smith: Special Makeup Effects Training|access-date=April 24, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160503062643/http://dicksmithmake-up.com/dicks-life-and-work/career-credits/dark-shadows-television-series-1967/|archive-date=May 3, 2016|url-status=dead}}</ref>

==Film work (late 1960s–1975)==
In the film ''[[Little Big Man (film)|Little Big Man]]'' (1970), the 30-something [[Dustin Hoffman]] played a man in extreme old age at several points in the film — similar, and with a very similar makeup design, to Smith's work making the 40-something actor Jonathan Frid look 175 years old in the film ''[[House of Dark Shadows]]'' (MGM, also 1970).{{#tag:ref |Smith had worked previously with Hoffman developing his Ratso Rizzo character's make-up for ''[[Midnight Cowboy]]'', 1969.| group= n}} "In the original book of ''Little Big Man'', Dustin's character is 110," Smith observed, "but the director [[Arthur Penn]] just said out of the blue one day: 'Let's make him 121 instead'. I worked six weeks on the old age make-up, using photographic references for every wrinkle."<ref name="Appleyard"/> Smith also consulted Australian make-up artist [[Roy Ashton]], having seen his work on the British horror film ''[[The Man Who Could Cheat Death]]'' (1959), in which [[Anton Diffring]] was made to appear of extreme old age.<ref>{{cite book | last=Sachs| first=Bruce| last2=Wall| first2=Russell| title=Greasepaint and Gore: The Hammer Monsters of Roy Ashton | publisher=Tomahawk Press| year=1999| isbn=9780953192601 }} p. 50</ref>

Smith had to use other methods, as an alternative to prosthetics,  to create an aged Don Corleone in ''[[The Godfather]]'' (1972) because [[Marlon Brando]] was unwilling to have such  appliances applied because of time considerations. Instead, Smith used stipple effects moving across the face from the actor's eyes.<ref>Harlan Lebo [https://books.google.com/books?id=EA1SCEmDyBMC&pg=PT85 ''The Godfather Legacy: The Untold Story of the Making of the Classic Godfather  Trilogy''], New York: Fireside, 2005, p.85</ref> A dental device called a "plumper" caused Brando's jowls to droop.<ref name="Tomlinson"/> To depict the bleeding of characters after they had been shot, Smith said he "created the first ever bleeding special effects in this movie by creating bladders that were hidden under a foam latex forehead, with a [[bullet hit squib|squib that detonated the bladder]], allowing blood to pour through a pre-arranged hole in the middle of the forehead."<ref name="Appleyard"/>

Smith was also one of the early pioneers of combining make-up with on-set "practical" special effects, beginning with ''[[The Exorcist]]'' (1973).<ref name="Fango">Lee Gamblin: [http://www.fangoria.com/new/regans-not-so-absent-father-a-personal-tribute-to-make-up-legend-dick-smith/ A Personal Tribute to Make-up Legend Dick Smith] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160324002047/http://www.fangoria.com/new/regans-not-so-absent-father-a-personal-tribute-to-make-up-legend-dick-smith/ |date=2016-03-24 }}, ''Fangoria'', 16 January 2015</ref> Smith's expertise gained prominence and acclaim through the variety and ingenuity of his many effects for ''The Exorcist''.<ref name=obit>{{cite web|url=http://news.sky.com/story/1310857/godfather-of-makeup-dick-smith-dies-aged-92 |title='Godfather Of Makeup' Dick Smith Dies Aged 92 |publisher=News.sky.com |access-date=July 31, 2014 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140731182241/http://news.sky.com/story/1310857/godfather-of-makeup-dick-smith-dies-aged-92 |archive-date=July 31, 2014 }}</ref> "''The Exorcist'' was really a turning point for make-up special effects," Rick Baker told ''[[The Washington Post]]'' in 2007. "Dick showed that makeup wasn't just about making people look scary or old, but had many applications. He figured out a way to make the welts swell up on [[Linda Blair|Linda [Blair]]]'s stomach, to make her head spin around, and he created the vomit scenes."<ref name="Thomas"/> For the head spinning effect, Smith created a mechanical dummy.<ref name="Nelson">Valerie J. Nelson [http://www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/la-me-dick-smith-20140801-story.html#page=1 "Dick Smith dies at 92; 'Exorcist' makeup man won Oscar for 'Amadeus'"], ''Los Angeles Times'', 31 July 2014</ref>

==Film work (1975–1989)==
Smith also created the make-up for [[Robert De Niro]]'s Travis Bickle character in ''[[Taxi Driver]]'' (1976),<!-- But in production during 1975. --> as well as creating the effects for the blood-drenched finale.<ref>{{cite book|last=Bouzereau|first=Laurent|title=Making 'Taxi Driver' (Video)|year=1999|publisher=Columbia TriStar Home Video|location=Los Angeles}}</ref>

Smith and [[Paul LeBlanc (make-up artist)|Paul LeBlanc]] won the [[Academy Award for Best Makeup]] for their work on ''[[Amadeus (film)|Amadeus]]'' (1984).<!-- Released September 1984 in the U.S. --><ref name="Oscars1985">{{Cite web|url=http://www.oscars.org/oscars/ceremonies/1985 |title=The 57th Academy Awards (1985) Nominees and Winners |access-date=March 13, 2014|work=oscars.org}}</ref> Once again, he had to age a leading actor in the film.<ref name="Fango"/> For the film he transformed the 44-year-old [[F. Murray Abraham]], as [[Antonio Salieri]], into an elderly man.<ref name="Italie">Hillel Italie [https://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory/godfather-makeup-dick-smith-dead-92-24794973 "'Godfather of Makeup' Dick Smith Dead at 92"], ''ABC News'' (Associated Press, NYC), 31 July 2014</ref> "Once I looked into a mirror, at my face, I felt like it was completely convincing," Abraham once commented.<ref name="Italie"/> "Actors have to feel like they are the person they are portraying. I think my work has helped many to achieve that," Smith once said.<ref name="Thomas"/>

Smith received a second Academy Award nomination for his work on ''[[Dad (1989 film)|Dad]]'' (1989), for which he was required to age [[Jack Lemmon]], then in his mid-60s,<!-- Born in February 1925, Lemmon could not have been 65 when the film was shot, as the following source claims. --> into an octogenarian.<ref name="Barnes"/>

==Later life (1990–2014)==
He later worked on films such as ''[[Death Becomes Her]]'' (1992), ''[[Forever Young (1992 film)|Forever Young]]'' (1992) and ''[[House on Haunted Hill (1999 film)|House on Haunted Hill]]'' (1999),<ref name="BBC310714">[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-28587295 "Dick Smith, 'godfather of make-up', dies aged 92"], BBC News, 31 July 2014</ref> his last credit.<ref>Kory Grow [https://www.rollingstone.com/movies/news/dick-smith-exorcist-and-godfather-makeup-artist-dead-at-92-20140731 "Dick Smith, 'Exorcist' and 'Godfather' Makeup Artist, Dead at 92"] ''Rolling Stone'', 31 July 2014</ref> In later life, Smith concentrated on teaching his methods to up-and-coming make-up artists.<ref name="BBC310714"/> Smith was awarded an [[Academy Honorary Award]] for his life's work<ref name="Oscars2011"/> in November 2011,<ref name="Fowler"/> the first ever make-up artist to be so honored.<ref name="Italie"/>

Smith died in Los Angeles on July 30, 2014, at the age of 92,<ref name="Yardley"/> survived by two sons.<ref>[https://variety.com/2014/film/people-news/dick-smith-dead-godfather-of-makeup-dies-at-92-1201272733/ "Dick Smith Dead: ‘Godfather of Makeup’ Dies at 92"], ''Variety'', 31 July 2014</ref>

== Partial filmography ==
{{div col}}
*''[[House of Dark Shadows]]'' (1970), directed by Dan Curtis
*''[[Little Big Man (film)|Little Big Man]]'' (1970),<ref name="Hutchings 2009">{{cite book|last=Hutchings|first=Peter|year=2009|title=The A to Z of Horror Cinema|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XQd4EQAAQBAJ&pg=PA296|publisher=[[Scarecrow Press]]|page=296|isbn=978-0810868878}}</ref> directed by Arthur Penn
*''[[Who Is Harry Kellerman and Why Is He Saying Those Terrible Things About Me?]]'' (1971), directed by Ulu Grosbard
*''[[The Godfather]]'' (1972),<ref name="Hutchings 2009" /> directed by Francis Ford Coppola
*''[[The Exorcist]]'' (1973),<ref name="Hutchings 2009" /> directed by William Friedkin
*''[[The Godfather Part II]]'' (1974), directed by Francis Ford Coppola
*''[[The Sunshine Boys (1975 film)|The Sunshine Boys]]'' (1975), directed by Herbert Ross
*''[[Taxi Driver]]'' (1976), directed by Martin Scorsese
*''[[Marathon Man (film)|Marathon Man]]'' (1976), directed by John Schlesinger
*''[[The Sentinel (1977 film)|The Sentinel]]'' (1977),<ref name="Hutchings 2009" /> directed by Michael Winner
*''[[Exorcist II: The Heretic]]'' (1977),<ref name="Hutchings 2009" /> directed by John Boorman
*''[[The Deer Hunter]]'' (1978), directed by Michael Cimino
*''[[Scanners]]'' (1981), directed by David Cronenberg
*''[[The Fan (1981 film)|The Fan]]'' (1981),<ref name="Hutchings 2009" /> directed by Edward Bianchi
*''[[Nighthawks (1981 film)|Nighthawks]]'' (1981), directed by Bruce Malmuth
*''[[Ghost Story (1981 film)|Ghost Story]]'' (1981),<ref name="Hutchings 2009" /> directed by John Irvin
*''[[The Hunger (1983 film)|The Hunger]]'' (1983),<ref name="Hutchings 2009" /> directed by Tony Scott
*''[[Spasms (film)|Spasms]]'' (1983),<ref name="Hutchings 2009" /> directed by William Fruet
*''[[Starman (film)|Starman]]'' (1984), directed by John Carpenter
*''[[Amadeus (film)|Amadeus]]'' (1984),<ref name="Hutchings 2009" /> directed by Miloš Forman
*''[[Poltergeist III]]'' (1988),<ref name="Hutchings 2009" /> directed by Gary Sherman
*''[[Sweet Home (1989 film)|Sweet Home]]'' (1989), directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa
*''[[Tales from the Darkside: The Movie]]'' (1990),<ref name="Hutchings 2009" /> directed by John Harrison
*''[[Death Becomes Her]]'' (1992), directed by Robert Zemeckis
*''[[House on Haunted Hill (1999 film)|House on Haunted Hill]]'' (1999),<ref name="Hutchings 2009" /> directed by William Malone
{{div col end}}

== References ==
'''Notes'''
{{Reflist | group=n}}
'''References'''
{{Reflist|30em}}

==External links==
*[http://www.dicksmithmake-up.com/ Dick Smith's website]
* {{IMDb name|4615|Dick Smith}}


{{Navboxes
|title = Awards for Dick Smith
|list =
{{Academy Award for Best Makeup and Hairstyling}}
{{Academy Honorary Award}}
{{BAFTA Award for Best Makeup and Hair}}
{{Saturn Award for Best Make-up}}
}}


{{DEFAULTSORT:Smith, Dick}}
[[Category:1922 births]]
[[Category:2014 deaths]]
[[Category:Academy Honorary Award recipients]]
[[Category:American make-up artists]]
[[Category:Best Makeup Academy Award winners]]
[[Category:Best Makeup BAFTA Award winners]]
[[Category:Military personnel from Connecticut]]
[[Category:Military personnel from New York (state)]]
[[Category:People from Larchmont, New York]]
[[Category:United States Army personnel of World War II]]
[[Category:Yale University alumni]]

{{Wikipedia attribution|original_title=Dick Smith (make-up artist)|access_date=2026-02-23}}