The father of "stop-motion" animation, Willis O'Brien (1886-1962) was a Hollywood special effects innovator most famous for his work using miniature models of a gorilla in King Kong. O'Brien's pioneering efforts transformed the possibilities of filmmaking, inventing a new kind of visual language later exploited by others in movies such as Jaws and Alien.

Starting with his models in animated shorts and in the original dinosaur movie, 1925's The Lost World, O'Brien gave American filmmakers new latitude in creating monstrous fantasies. Although he won an Academy Award for the special effects in Mighty Joe Young in 1949, O'Brien labored largely in obscurity, gaining neither fame nor fortune. Many of O'Brien's fantastic, elaborate film ideas were never realized.

Conjurer of Movie Tricks

Born in Oakland, California, in 1886, Willis Harold O'Brien worked short stints as a cowboy and a boxer before becoming a cartoonist for the San Francisco Daily News. Soon...