Roy Ashton
Roy Ashton ( * as Howard Roy Ashton April 16, 1909 in Perth, Australia, † 10 January 1995 in Farnham, Surrey ) was a British artist. Special recognition he reached for his work for the Hammer film production for which he most of the classic movie monsters like Frankenstein's creature, the Mummy and the Werewolf redesigned.
Life & Career
Roy Ashton was born in April 1909 in Perth. He originally intended to become an artist when he accepted a job as a student at a film company there that he discovered his interest in make-up studio.
From 1957 he worked for the British Hammer Film Production, where he was involved as an assistant to Philip Leaky on the redesign of the first creature in The Curse of Frankenstein. In 1958 he made for Dracula to a kind of braces with long fangs and integrated blood pump was activated with a pressure of the tongue on the palate. His first fully own recreation of the classic movie monsters was the mummy in Revenge of the Pharaohs (1959).
For hammer interpretation of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde, beat 12 in London ( 1960), Ashton trod his own path, the massively different from other adaptations incurred up to that. Instead of giving the sinister Mr. Hyde a monstrous animal -like appearance, he made the figure appear as a handsome young man. Jekyll, however, received a so-called Old Age make-up, ie the actor was wearing makeup older and less attractive with Wig, Beard and artificial tears sacks.
Roy Ashton's probably most impressive work for hammer were his masks for The Curse of Siniestro ( 1961). Ashton, who always operate very accurate research in order to give his work a realistic appearance, this visited the Natural History Museum in London, where he studied the appearance of wolves in detail, before the werewolf make up for Oliver Reed designed. But the scaly and dotted with leprosy skin for the old Marqués Siniestro, played by Anthony Dawson, was very effective in its hideousness.
1962 created Ashton probably be most effective combustion make-up for The mystery of the sinister mask, the remake of The Phantom of the Opera. The makeup that was Herbert Lom as a phantom, leaving his left side of the face look almost burned down to the skull bone. The mask, which bore the Phantom on his disfigurement was a stopgap, Ashton they tinkered almost immediately before shooting from some scraps of fabric and some paint together.
He had similar difficulties when working on Frankenstein's monster (1964). For this film, Hammer had won the Universal Studios as a distributor and was allowed to use the first time the legendary monster design by Jack P. Pierce. Since Universal, was not last, very convenient for financial reasons at a recognition, they gave Ashton strict rules and he was severely limited in his creativity. The mediocre results, on the one finally was able to agree on was the design No. 112, an angular skull cap that looked strongly of paper mache.
Towards the beginning of the 1970s gradually parted ways the Ashtons and the Hammer film production. Nevertheless, he remained true to the horror genre continues, for example, in Tales from the Crypt or the TV two-parter Frankenstein, as he really was (1974).
Besides his work as a makeup artist Roy Ashton also had classical vocal training, was one of the founding members of the English Opera Group of Benjamin Britten and sang for a time as a tenor at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden.
On January 10, 1995 Roy Ashton died at the age of eighty-six years from the effects of pneumonia. He is survived by his wife, Elizabeth Ashton, with whom he was married from 1948 until his death, and a child together.
1998 his work in Greasepaint and Gore were: The Hammer Monsters of Roy Ashton, a book by Bruce Sachs and Russell Wall appreciated. Published in 2004 a documentary film of the same title, in which also includes Hammer horror icon Christopher Lee was interviewed.
An extensive archive of his sketches and designs as well as materials of his work for film and television is located in the National Media Museum in Bradford.