Special effects genius Carlo Rambaldi died 10 August 2012, after a long illness. Born 15 September 1925 in Emilia-Romagna, Italy, he won three Oscars, for his work on King Kong (1976), Alien (1979), and E.T.: The Extraterrestrial (1982). He also won a Saturn Award for E.T., and was nominated for another for Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977).
Steven Spielberg called Rambaldi “E.T.’s Geppetto. All of us who marveled and wondered at his craft and artistry are deeply saddened by the news of his passing.” According to MSN, Rambaldi “created three robots, two costumes worn by actors in the scenes when E.T. walked, and gloves for the hands.”
Rambaldi’s field was known as mechatronics, which combines mechanical, electronic, and system design engineering. MSN quoted Rome’s La Repubblica about his disdain for computerized special effects: “Digital costs around eight times as much as mechatronics. E.T. cost a million dollars and we created it in three months. If we wanted to do the same thing with computers, it would take at least 200 people a minimum of five months.”
After graduating from Bologna’s Academy of Fine Arts in 1951, Rambaldi expected to become an artist, but he moved into cinema in the mid-1950s. His first film job was creating a dragon for a low-budget sf film Sigfrido (1957). He moved to Rome and worked in television. His first big success was the Italian horror film Deep Red (1975). He caught the eye of Dino De Laurentiis, who brought him to Hollywood for King Kong (1976).
His other genre film work includes: Primal Rage (1988), Cameron’s Clost (1988), King Kong Lives (1986), Silver Bullet (1985), Cat’s Eye (1985), Conan the Destroyer (1984), Dune (1984), Possession (1981), The Hand (1981), Nightwing (1979), Lover of the Monster (1974), The Hand That Feeds the Dead (1974), Andy Warhol’s Dracula (1974), Andy Warhol’s Frankenstein (1973), Tragic Ceremony (1972), Frankenstein 80 (1972), The French Sex Murders (1972), Night of the Devils (1972), Twitch of the Death Nerve (1971), L’odissea (1968), La strega in amore (1966), Bloody Pit of Horror (1965), Planet of the Vampires (1965), Perseo l’invincible (1963), Maciste contro i mostri (1962), and Goliath and the Dragon (1960).