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John Stears
John Stears (25 August 1934 – 28 April 1999) was an English special effects artist. A two-time Academy Award winner, nicknamed the "Dean of Special Effects," he was responsible for creating a host of iconic movie gadgets and effects, including James Bond's lethal Aston Martin DB5, Luke Skywalker's Landspeeder, the Jedi Knights' lightsabers, the Death Star, and the robots R2-D2 and C-3PO.
Stears was born in Uxbridge, Middlesex (now part of Greater London) on 25 August 1934 and grew up in nearby Ickenham. Stears studied at Harrow College of Art and Southall Technical School before working as a draughtsman with the Air Ministry.
He served as a dispatch rider during his National Service, then joined a firm of architects where he was able to utilise his passion for model-making by constructing scale models of building projects for clients.
For most of his life he lived at Welders House in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire, where he reared cattle and his wife ran the Livny Borzoi Kennels, breeding Borzoi show dogs.
In 1993, he sold his Welders House country estate in Buckinghamshire to the singer Ozzy Osbourne and emigrated to California with his wife Brenda, whom he married in 1960, the couple had two children.
Stears' effects featured in the first eight James Bond films, winning an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects in 1965 for Thunderball, and sharing another Academy Award in 1977 for Star Wars.
He created some of the most famous scenes in the movies. He blew up the villain's Jamaican hideout at the end of Dr. No (1962), and for Goldfinger (1964), he created Agent 007's Aston Martin DB5, featuring bullet-proof windows, revolving licence plates, forward-firing machine guns, a rear oil-slick dispenser and a passenger-side ejector seat.
He also created an avalanche for On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969) and built flying cars for the musical film Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968) and the Bond film The Man with the Golden Gun (1974).
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John Stears
John Stears (25 August 1934 – 28 April 1999) was an English special effects artist. A two-time Academy Award winner, nicknamed the "Dean of Special Effects," he was responsible for creating a host of iconic movie gadgets and effects, including James Bond's lethal Aston Martin DB5, Luke Skywalker's Landspeeder, the Jedi Knights' lightsabers, the Death Star, and the robots R2-D2 and C-3PO.
Stears was born in Uxbridge, Middlesex (now part of Greater London) on 25 August 1934 and grew up in nearby Ickenham. Stears studied at Harrow College of Art and Southall Technical School before working as a draughtsman with the Air Ministry.
He served as a dispatch rider during his National Service, then joined a firm of architects where he was able to utilise his passion for model-making by constructing scale models of building projects for clients.
For most of his life he lived at Welders House in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire, where he reared cattle and his wife ran the Livny Borzoi Kennels, breeding Borzoi show dogs.
In 1993, he sold his Welders House country estate in Buckinghamshire to the singer Ozzy Osbourne and emigrated to California with his wife Brenda, whom he married in 1960, the couple had two children.
Stears' effects featured in the first eight James Bond films, winning an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects in 1965 for Thunderball, and sharing another Academy Award in 1977 for Star Wars.
He created some of the most famous scenes in the movies. He blew up the villain's Jamaican hideout at the end of Dr. No (1962), and for Goldfinger (1964), he created Agent 007's Aston Martin DB5, featuring bullet-proof windows, revolving licence plates, forward-firing machine guns, a rear oil-slick dispenser and a passenger-side ejector seat.
He also created an avalanche for On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969) and built flying cars for the musical film Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968) and the Bond film The Man with the Golden Gun (1974).