Obituary- "Elephant Man" makeup artist Walter Schneidermann

[oldbrownhat]

Makeup artist who spent seven hours a day applying the prosthetics for the 1980 film The Elephant Man

Article here.

...Schneiderman, who has died aged 98, called the film "one of the hardest pictures I had to do". It took seven hours each day to put the makeup on Hurt, and another two to take it off again. "Everything was so precise," he said. "There were 14 pieces, not including the head, and they had to be applied exactly, every day for continuity. You couldn't afford to make a mistake."

...He moved into more film work with The Guns of Navarone (1961), I Could Go On Singing (1963), with Judy Garland and Dirk Bogarde, One Million Years BC (1966) and The Dirty Dozen (1967). Isadora (1968) was the first of several movies he made with Vanessa Redgrave, one of many actors who began to stipulate him as their preferred makeup artist.

After Fiddler on the Roof (1971), he acquired an agent and landed work on blockbusters such as Juggernaut (1974) and Rollerball (1975). For the TV film A Woman Called Golda (1982), he helped to turn Ingrid Bergman and Judy Davis into the older and younger Golda Meir respectively, cleverly creating continuity between the two performers....

 

[Rustyt1953]

I have only seen the Elephant Man twice. I saw it in the theater when it first came out and I was actually moved to tears. It took me a long time to get up the nerve to see it again because it is such a sad, sorrowful tale. It tore Ruthie up so bad that she won't watch it ever again.

When I did watch it again I concentrated on the ability of the actors to completely sell and move me.

Hopkins, Hurt, Bancroft and Gielgud were magnificent.

I

 

[oldbrownhat]

I have only seen the Elephant Man twice. I saw it in the theater when it first came out and I was actually moved to tears. It took me a long time to get up the nerve to see it again because it is such a sad, sorrowful tale. It tore Ruthie up so bad that she won't watch it ever again.

When I did watch it again I concentrated on the ability of the actors to completely sell and move me.

Hopkins, Hurt, Bancroft and Gielgud were magnificent.

I've only seen it once and it was not an easy watch, that's for sure. Wasn't there one line where Merrick desperately says, "I....am.... a MAN!" ?

Immensly moving, and more so because it's a true story. And yes, an absolutely first-rate cast.