As with many of my generation, I grew up on Forrest J. Ackerman’s Famous Monsters of Filmland, and later read Cinefantastique, Cinefex, and books on fantastic films, so the names of Willis O’Brien, Ray Haryhausen, Jim, Danforth, Mario Larrinaga, Dennis Muren, Wah Chang, and others have been pretty familiar to me.
But in recent years a lot of other effects and makeup people who have been long neglected have been getting credit for their long-ago work.
Paul Blaisdell – Apparently there was some sort of falling-out between him and Warren, the publisher behind Famous Monsters, because his name never appeared in that magazine. He was the wizard of low-price, low-tech who could create creatures from bodysuits, foam latex, and airbrushed paint, especially for Roger Corman. Starting with The Beast with a Million Eyes, he created a succession of wird, often highly unlikely, but often iconic creatures, including the “cucumber man” in It Conquered the World and the big-headed aliens in * Invasion of the Saucer Men*. His creation of the She Creature was one of the wildest. I didn’t realize until I saw stills of it that it had huge stylized breasts and a head of stringy “blonde” hair. He later re-used the costume (with significant changes) for Voodoo Woman and The Ghost of Dragstrip Hollow. He also created the freay miniature creatures like the flying umbrella monster from the original Not of THis Earth and the “Inject-a-Pods” from It Conquered the World. His masterpiece has to be the Martian spaceship-invader from It! The Terror from Beyond Space (from which Alien ripped off its plot). The guy in the suit was former serial star Raymond “Crrash” Corrigan, whose head was too big for the mask. If you lok at the head, it seems to have a weird tongue or something – that’s Corrigan’s study cleft chin protruding from the mouth hole, because that’s as far as they could get the mask on.
Blaisdell has gotten publicity over past couple of decades, and a book about him, so he’s not as obscure as he once was.
Svend Aage Pedersen, who changed his name to Pete Peterson – long-unacknowledged assistant to master animator Willis O’Brien, who worked wit O’Brien and Harryhausen on Mighty Joe Young, and went on to assist with the Black Scorpion and The Giant Behemoth. Near the end of his life he suffered from several conditions, including kidney cancer, and had to animate from a seated position. You can se some test animation he did on his own on YouTube. Some of his models (the “Beetleman”) inspired the animation in Flesh Gordon.
**Milicent Patrick** (supposedly originally **Mildred Elizabeth Fulvia di Rossi**) -- I hadn't heard of her until I saw a new book -- *The Lady from the Black Lagoon*. Universal used to publicize its monster makers (especially the eccentric make-up artist Jack Peirce), but I can't recall them saying a word about Patrick, the only woman I know of who created a major iconic monster. I always though that the Creature suit was an incredible creation -- a "practical" diving suit that could be shot underwater as well as above water (and, arguably, the reason for making the "creature" films in the first place), but never thought to look into its creation. Malory O'Meara unearthed the details for the book she wrote:Patrick’s creation went beyond the creature: