\nBorn: Los Angeles 29th June 1920
\nDied: London 7th May 2013.<\/p>\n
The Harryhausen family regret to announce the death of Ray Harryhausen, Visual Effects pioneer and stop-motion model animator. He was a multi-award winner which includes a special Oscar and BAFTA. Ray\u2019s influence on today\u2019s film makers was enormous, with luminaries; Steven Spielberg, James Cameron, Peter Jackson, George Lucas, John Landis and the UK\u2019s own Nick Park have cited Harryhausen as being the man whose work inspired their own creations.<\/p>\n
Harryhausen\u2019s fascination with animated models began when he first saw Willis O\u2019Brien\u2019s creations in KING KONG with his boyhood friend, the author Ray Bradbury in 1933, and he made his first foray into filmmaking in 1935 with home-movies that featured his youthful attempts at model animation. Over the period of the next 46 years, he made some of the genres best known movies \u2013 MIGHTY JOE YOUNG (1949), IT CAME FROM BENEATH THE SEA (1955), 20 MILLION MILES TO EARTH (1957), MYSTERIOUS ISLAND (1961), ONE MILLION YEARS B.C. (1966), THER VALLEY OF GWANGI (1969), three films based on the adventures of SINBAD and CLASH OF THE TITANS (1981). He is perhaps best remembered for his extraordinary animation of seven skeletons in JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS (1963) which took him three months to film.<\/p>\n
Harryhausen\u2019s genius was in being able to bring his models alive. Whether they were prehistoric dinosaurs or mythological creatures, in Ray\u2019s hands they were no longer puppets but became instead characters in their own right, just as important as the actors they played against and in most cases even more so.<\/p>\n
Today The Ray & Diana Harryhausen Foundation, a charitable Trust set up by Ray on the 10th April 1986, is devoted to the protection of Ray\u2019s name and body of work as well as archiving, preserving and restoring Ray\u2019s extensive Collection.<\/p>\n
Tributes have been heaped upon Harryhausen for his work by his peers in recent years.<\/p>\n
\u201cRay has been a great inspiration to us all in special visual industry. The art of his earlier films, which most of us grew up on, inspired us so much.\u201d \u201cWithout Ray Harryhausen, there would likely have been no STAR WARS\u201d
\nGeorge Lucas.<\/p>\n
\u201cTHE LORD OF THE RINGS is my \u2018Ray Harryhausen movie\u2019. Without his life-long love of his wondrous images and storytelling it would never have been made \u2013 not by me at least\u201d
\nPeter Jackson<\/p>\n
\u201cIn my mind he will always be the king of stop-motion animation\u201d
\nNick Park<\/p>\n
“His legacy of course is in good hands
\nBecause it\u2019s carried in the DNA of so many film fans.”
\nRandy Cook<\/p>\n
“You know I\u2019m always saying to the guys that I work with now on computer graphics \u201cdo it like Ray Harryhausen\u201d
\nPhil Tippett<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we do now digitally with computers, Ray did digitally long before but without computers. Only with his digits.\u201d
\nTerry Gilliam.<\/p>\n
“His patience, his endurance have inspired so many of us.”
\nPeter Jackson<\/p>\n
“Ray, your inspiration goes with us forever.”
\nSteven Spielberg<\/p>\n
“I think all of us who are practioners in the arts of science fiction and fantasy movies now all feel that we\u2019re standing on the shoulders of a giant. If not for Ray\u2019s contribution to the collective dreamscape, we wouldn\u2019t be who we are.”
\nJames Cameron<\/strong><\/p>\n
![\"RIP](\"http:\/\/www.shockya.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/RIP-Ray-Harryhausen.jpg\" "\\"RIP")
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