Oscar winning VFX artist Robert Blalack passes away at 73

Representational picture: iStock

Oscar and Emmy award-winning visual effects artist Robert Blalack has died at the age of 73. Robert died on Wednesday of cancer at his home in Paris, his wife, writer Caroline Charron-Blalack, told The Hollywood Reporter.

The Industrial Light and Magic co-founder shares an Oscar for his contribution to the groundbreaking visual effects employed on the original 'Star Wars'. He had also received an Emmy Award for his work on the 1983 hit sci-fi drama 'The Day After'.

Born in Panama on December 9, 1948, Robert had worked at Crest Digital and on Peter Davis' 1974 Oscar-winning Vietnam documentary 'Hearts and Minds' when he
met John Dykstra during the production of a documentary about Douglas Trumbull's VFX house Future General Corp.

The two then teamed with George Lucas and others to launch ILM, and he, Dykstra, John Stears, Richard Edlund and Grant McCune won the effects Academy Award for 1977 'Star Wars', as per The Hollywood Reporter. Robert designed and supervised the composite optical production pipeline that produced all 365 VistaVision VFX shots for the film.

He had also produced the visual effects for the 13-part PBS documentary series Carl Sagan's 'Cosmos: A Personal Voyage' in 1980. He has also worked on movies like 'Meteor', John Landis' 'The Blues Brothers', 'Airplane!', Ken Russell's 'Altered States' and 'Wolfen' among several others.

Robert Blalack is survived by his wife and son, Paul, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

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