Willis O'Brien

Willis H. O'Brien Born March 2, 1886 Oakland, California Died November 8, 1962 Occupation Special Effects Technician First work The Dinosaur and the Missing Link: A Prehistoric Tragedy (1915) Notable work King Kong (1933)

Willis O'Brien was an American special effects pioneer who has been credited as the creator of stop-motion animation.

Biography

In his spare time, O'Brien enjoyed sculpting and illustrating which led to his being employed as a cartoonist. During this time he also worked a variety of other jobs including a professional boxer. A 1915 short film made with some of his sculptures called The Dinosaur and the Missing Link: A Prehistoric Tragedy greatly impressed innovator Thomas Edison, and he was subsequently hired by the Edison Company to produce more dinosaur films. Much later, after taking a job with RKO, O'Brien began work on an eventually-scrapped film entitled Creation by studio head Merian C. Cooper, who instead offered to use his dinosaur models on his own project, King Kong, due to his being so impressed with his work.

However, he distanced himself from the film's sequel, Son of Kong, which he allegedly felt to be "cheesy," and asked not to be credited in the film. O'Brien would later write a story treatment for a follow-up to King Kong pitting Kong against a giant version of Frankenstein's monster in San Francisco. The story was fleshed out into a screenplay and titled King Kong vs. Prometheus, but O'Brien could not find a studio to back the project. The idea was subsequently stolen by independent producer John Beck and pitched to Toho, who reworked it into what eventually became King Kong vs. Godzilla. O'Brien passed away shortly after the film premiered in Japan.

Selected Filmography

• The Dinosaur and the Missing Link (1915) - Director, Stop-Motion Animation, Cinematographer
• The Ghost of Slumber Mountain (1918) - Director, Stop-Motion Animation, Screenwriter, Actor [Mad Dick]
• The Lost World (1925) - Stop-Motion Animation
• King Kong (1933) - Stop-Motion Animation
• Son of Kong (1933) - Stop-Motion Animation [uncredited]
• Mighty Joe Young (1949) - Stop-Motion Supervisor
• The Animal World (1956) - Stop-Motion Animation [with Ray Harryhausen]
• The Beast of Hollow Mountain (1956) - Screenplay [as El Toro Estrella, with Robert Hall and Jack DeWitt]
• The Black Scorpion (1957) - Stop-Motion Animation
• The Giant Behemoth (1959) - Stop-Motion Animation
• The Lost World (1960) - Effects Technician

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