Dammit, dammit, dammit, dammit, dammit, DAMN IT!
Ray Harryhausen, a master of stop-motion animation and a true movie great, has died. He was 92.
Born in Los Angeles in June 1920, Harryhausen’s enthusiasm for the burgeoning form of animation was sparked by a viewing of Willis O’Brien’s King Kong as a wide-eyed 13 year-old. Two years later and he could be found crafting his own homemade animations, prototypes of the models he would quickly come to perfect in Mighty Joe Young (1949), It Came From Beneath The Sea (1955), 20 Million Miles To Earth (1957) and The Valley Of Gwangi (1969).
Three Sinbad movies delivered classic monsters like the Cyclops and Homonicus, Jason And The Argonauts (1963) brought skeletons and Talos to the screen, while Clash Of The Titans (1981) delivered Medusa and unleashed a Kraken. All memorable; all maintained for posterity by the Ray & Diana Harryhausen Foundation.
I know, I know: you can hardly claim that he had a bad life, or anything but a full one. But I was half-hoping that Ray was just going to… keep going until we could get the clone memory transfer thing going, or something. I don’t think that was unreasonable of me. I mean: how many times do you hear of a 92 year old dying?
Via
RT @kurt_loder: RIP FX legend #RayHarryhausen: bit.ly/ZExxNZ via @icedborscht
— Sirius U. Guise (@vermontaigne) May 7, 2013
Break out some of his flicks in his honor. “The Golden Voyage of Sinbad” is a good choice.
Well, there goes my childhood. I’d still go to see a Harryhausen flick over anything they put out today, and I’d be willing to Pay!