Stan Winston, one of Hollywood's reigning special makeup and visual effects virtuosos and, as anyone who ever saw him on TV or crossed paths with him at a convention can testify, one of the most likable fellows in his field, died Sunday at his Malibu home at age 62, ending a long struggle with multiple myeloma. Born in 1946, Winston graduated from the University of Virginia, where he studied sculpture and painting, before heading to California in 1968 with ambitions to make it as an actor. Instead, he landed at Disney as a makeup apprentice. In 1972, he founded Stan Winston Studio, the first of a string of companies that would eventually include Stan Winston Digital and Digital Domain (co-founded with Scott Ross). He proceeded to immediately attract attention for his work in television, including his memorable work on the TV movies Gargoyles, where he encased Bernie Casey in Satanic makeup, and The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, where he aged Cicely Tyson a hundred years. (He won Emmys for both programs.)
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