John Stears
| John Stears | |
|---|---|
John Stears being interviewed in
The Men Behind the Mayhem: The SFX of James Bond |
|
| Born |
August 25, 1934 London, England, U.K. |
| Died | April 28, 1999 (aged 64) Pacific Palisades, California, U.S. |
| Occupation | Special Effects Supervisor |
John Stears (25 August 1934 – 28 June 1999) was a British two-time Academy Award-winning special effects expert. Affectionately known as 'The Real Q' he created James Bond's lethal Aston Martin DB5, Luke Skywalker's Landspeeder, the Jedi Knights' lightsabers, the endearing robots R2-D2 and C-3PO as well as a host of other movie gadgets and special effects.
John Stears was born in Uxbridge, 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 on an estate in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire, where he reared cattle and where his wife ran the Livny Borzoi Kennels, breeding Borzoi show dogs.
In 1993, he sold his estate in Buckinghamshire to the rock legend Ozzy Osbourne and retired to California with his wife Brenda, whom he married in 1960, and two daughters.
Stears added his inventions to the first eight James Bond thrillers, won the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects in 1965 for Thunderball, and shared another Academy Award in 1977 for Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope.
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