Carlo Rambaldi, Movie Maestro of Special Effects, Dies at 86

Carlo Rambaldi, a special-effects virtuoso who won two Academy Awards for his work on Steven


Spielberg’s “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial” and Ridley Scott’s “Alien” and a special achievement award from the Motion Picture Academy for John Guillermin’s 1976 remake of “King Kong,” died Friday in southern Italy. He was 86.

He designed and built an eyeless animatronic head that realized H. R. Giger’s parasitic beast in “Alien” and the benign, musical aliens of Mr. Spielberg’s “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.” He also collaborated on animatronic masks, suits and a 42-foot-tall ape for “King Kong.” But his crowning achievement was “E.T.”

“Carlo Rambaldi was E.T.’s Geppetto,” Steven Spielberg said in a statement on Friday.

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Carlo Rambaldi, Movie Maestro of Special Effects, Dies at 86 - NYTimes.com: