With a lifelong interest in motion pictures and television, my interest in make-up stems from wanting to know how actors were made to look like the character they were playing. I was especially interested in the classic monsters from Universal Studios in the 1930s and 1940s. I read a lot about the make-up techniques used then and the make-up artists such as Jack Pierce, the Westmores, Dick Smith, etc. who pioneered the make-up industry.
As a child I read Famous Monsters magazine and Dick Smith’s Do-It-Yourself Monster Make-up Handbook, learning a lot of techniques. I was always interested in the face and formally learned make-up by going to the Joe Blasco Make-up School in Orlando, Fl. in 1995. My first job as a make-up artist was at Universal Studios in Orlando for the Beetlejuice Graveyard Review. There I made up actors as the Universal Monsters for a live 15-20 minute show a couple times a day. Along with the make-up, the actors wore slip rubber masks that I learned to make and paint with the airbrush and PAX paint.
From there I went to NYC and was fortunate enough to get into NBC Studios where I made-up the newscasters for WNBC and did 2 seasons on Saturday Night Live from 1995-1997. I was Will Ferrell’s make-up artist doing straight and character make-up, prosthetic application, bald caps, etc. I learned so much during those 2 years by learning to adapt and apply make-ups quickly.
Afterwards, I was hired by Dept. Head Carl Fullerton to work on the movie “Beloved” with Oprah Winfrey. Working in Carl’s FX shop in NJ, learning from Neal Martz, I did molding and casting of prosthetic appliances and helped make the silicone babies used in the film.
In 2002, I went out to LA and worked for a short while at Greg Canom’s Captive Audience Studio where I assisted in sculpting the Frankenstein Monster body suit for “Van Helsing” for Universal Studios. We sculpted the whole thing in water based clay in about 3 weeks.
Returning to the east coast, I took off from doing make-up to spend several years working as a sculptor of prototype action figures, statues and busts, specializing in the portrait. My customers included McFarlane, NECA, Mezco, Entertainment Earth, etc. You can view my figures in the Sculpture Portfolio section of this site.
While I still sculpt busts and figures for private collectors, I work in film and TV production in NY and Phil. doing basic, beauty, character and FX make-up. I have keyed such films as “21 Bridges”, “Glass”, “Split”, and “The Visit”. I have worked on various TV shows such as CBS’s Madam Secretary (seasons 2-5), Punisher (season 2), Gotham (season 4), as well as the movie “The Trial of the Chicago 7”.