Ralph McQuarrie - USA
Ralph McQuarrie is a visionary conceptual designer and the artist responsible for the look of the original Star Wars trilogy.
McQuarrie also created concept art for E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Cocoon, for which he won an Academy Award.
Ralph McQuarrie
McQuarrie visiting Industrial Light & Magic in 2008
McQuarrie visiting ILM in 2008
Born June 13, 1929 Gary, Indiana, United States
Died March 3, 2012 (aged 82)Berkeley, California, U.S.
Awards Academy Award for Best Visual Effects (1985)
Ralph Angus McQuarrie (June 13, 1929 – March 3, 2012) was an American conceptual designer and illustrator.
His career included work on the original Star Wars trilogy, the original Battlestar Galactica television series, the film E.T. the Extra Terrestrial, and the film Cocoon, for which he won an Academy Award.
Ralph McQuarrie was born on June 13, 1929 in Gary, Indiana and was raised on a farm near Billings, Montana.
He served in the United States Army during the Korean War, surviving a shot to the head.
After returning from the war, McQuarrie moved to California in the 1960s,studying at the Art Center School,then in downtown Los Angeles.
McQuarrie initially worked for a dentistry firm, drawing teeth and equipment,before working as an Artist and Preliminary Design Illustrator for the Boeing Company, where he drew diagrams for a manual on constructing the 747 Jumbo Jet, as well as designing film posters and animating CBS News' coverage of the Apollo space program at the three-man company Reel Three.
While there, McQuarrie was asked by Hal Barwood to produce some illustrations for a film project he and Matthew Robbins were starting.
McQuarrie married Joan Benjamin in 1983 and stayed married until his death.