Roy Ashton (makeup artist)

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Howard Roy Ashton (born April 16, 1909 in Perth , Australia , † January 10, 1995 in Farnham , Surrey ) was a British makeup artist . He achieved particular fame through his work for the Hammer film production, for which he redesigned most of the classic film monsters such as Frankenstein's creature , the mummy and the werewolf .

Life

Roy Ashton was born in Perth in April 1909. He originally intended to become an artist when he took a job at a film company while studying and discovered his interest in make-up.

From 1957 he worked for the British Hammer film production, where he was initially involved in the redesign of the creature at Frankenstein's Curse as Philip Leaky's assistant . In 1958 he made a kind of braces for Dracula with long fangs and an integrated blood pump that was activated by pressing the tongue on the palate. His first completely own recreation of one of the classic movie monsters was the mummy in Revenge of the Pharaohs (1959).

For Hammer's interpretation of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde , stroke 12 in London (1960), Ashton went his own way, which differed massively from other films made up to that point. Instead of giving the sinister Mr. Hyde a monstrous animal-like appearance, he made the figure appear as a handsome young man. Jekyll, on the other hand, received a so-called old age make-up , ie the actor was made older and less attractive with a wig, full beard and artificial bags under the eyes.

Probably Roy Ashton's most impressive work for Hammer was his masks for The Curse of Siniestro (1961). Ashton, who always did very detailed research to give his work as realistic a look as possible, visited the Natural History Museum in London , where he studied the appearance of wolves in detail before he designed the werewolf make-up for Oliver Reed . But the peeling and leprosy skin of the old Marqués Siniestro, played by Anthony Dawson , was very effective in its abomination.

In 1962 Ashton created his most effective burn make-up for The Riddle of the Eerie Mask , the remake of The Phantom of the Opera . The make-up that Herbert Lom wore as a phantom made the left side of his face look practically burned down to the skull bone. The mask that the phantom wore over his disfigurement was a stopgap solution. Ashton put it together from some scraps of fabric and some paint almost immediately before filming began.

He had similar difficulties while working on Frankenstein's monster (1964). For this film, Hammer had won Universal Studios as a distribution partner and was therefore able to use the legendary monster design by Jack P. Pierce for the first time . Since Universal was very interested in recognition value , not least for financial reasons, Ashton was given strict guidelines and he was severely restricted in his creativity. The rather mediocre result that was finally agreed was design no. 112, an angular skull attachment that looked a lot like paper mache.

Towards the beginning of the 1970s, Ashton and Hammer film production gradually parted ways. Nevertheless, he remained loyal to the horror genre, for example in Tales from the Crypt or the two-part TV series Frankenstein as He Really Was (1974).

In addition to his work as a make-up artist, Roy Ashton also had a classical vocal training, was one of the founding members of Benjamin Britten's English Opera Group and sang as a tenor at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden for a while .

Roy Ashton died on January 10, 1995 at the age of eighty-six of complications from pneumonia . He leaves behind his wife Elizabeth Ashton, with whom he was married from 1948 until his death, and a child together.

In 1998, his work was recognized in Greasepaint and Gore: The Hammer Monsters of Roy Ashton , a book by Bruce Sachs and Russell Wall. In 2004 a documentary with the same title was released, in which, among other things, hammer horror icon Christopher Lee was interviewed.

An extensive archive of his sketches and drafts, as well as materials from his film and television work, is in the National Media Museum in Bradford .

Filmography (selection)

literature

  • Bruce Sachs, Russell Wall: Greasepaint and Gore: The Hammer Monsters of Roy Ashton. Tomahawk Press, Sheffield 1998, ISBN 0-9531926-0-1 .

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Ashton, Roy
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Ashton, Howard Roy (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British makeup artist
DATE OF BIRTH April 16, 1909
PLACE OF BIRTH Perth , Australia
DATE OF DEATH January 10, 1995
Place of death Farnham , Surrey