Wally Westmore

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Walter “Wally” James Westmore (born February 13, 1906 in Canterbury , Kent , United Kingdom ; † July 3, 1973 in Los Angeles , California , United States ) was a British-American makeup artist .

Live and act

Wally Westmore was next to Jack P. Pierce , his most important competitor in the creation of horror film make-up at the beginning of the 1930s, one of the best-known and, with almost 500 film orders, also the most productive make-up artist of the first forty years of sound film in Hollywood. The son of George Westmore (1879–1931), who emigrated from England to the USA and originally worked as a hairdresser and had set up the first make-up department in Hollywood in 1917, joined the film industry in 1921 while still at school (Brunton Studios ). After graduating from high school in 1923, apprenticeship years at three other production companies (Warner Brothers, Fox and United Studios) followed at short intervals before he joined Paramount Pictures in 1926 for the rest of his professional life . Wally Westmore also worked in his father's profession, as did his brothers Monte (1902-1940), Perc (1904-1970), Ern (1904-1967), Bud (1918-1973) and Frank Westmore (1923-1985), all of whom were also worked as makeup artists in Hollywood, but none of the Westmores made it to Wally's fame and rise.

Already at the beginning of the sound film era, Wally Westmore managed to create some impressive horror masks, such as that of Fredric March as Mr. Hyde in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde or those of Bela Lugosi as leaders of the against Dr. Moreau rebelling ape-men in The Isle of Lost Souls . Shortly thereafter, Westmore began working for other film genres and eventually headed the make-up department at Paramount, where he worked in the following decades with star directors such as Cecil B. DeMille , Billy Wilder , William Wyler , Wilhelm Dieterle , Alfred Hitchcock and Frank Capra . At The Hitler Gang in 1943 he got some masks of famous Nazi greats, which were amazingly similar to the originals. From the end of the war in 1945, he was mostly responsible for supervising the Paramount make-up artists. In his final years at work, the late 1950s and 1960s, Wally Westmore also frequently worked on films with Elvis Presley and Jerry Lewis . In 1969 he retired into private life.

Together with his five brothers, Wally Westmore also ran two companies that were also closely linked to the film industry: House of Westmore Salon and House of Westmore Cosmetics.

Filmography (small selection)

literature

  • International Motion Picture Almanac 1965, Quigley Publishing Company, New York 1964, p. 306

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Westmore, Wally
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Westmore, Walter James; Westmore, Wally James (nickname)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British-American makeup artist
DATE OF BIRTH February 13, 1906
PLACE OF BIRTH Canterbury , Kent , United Kingdom
DATE OF DEATH 3rd July 1973
Place of death Los Angeles , California , United States