The Makeup Master Who Changed More Than Looks
(First published in May 1986.)
By Gregory N. Joseph
HOLLYWOOD’S BEST FACE is almost always painted on, and through the years members of the Westmore family most often have been the ones to do the painting.
Of all the dynasties in the history of film — the Barrymores, the Redgraves, the Fondas, the Carradines, the Douglases — the Westmores have endured the longest and probably have done the most to shape, quite literally, the face of Hollywood.
They may be listed in the credits as makeup artists, but a more accurate description might be image-sculptors.
Consider: A Westmore styled Mary Pickford’s storied golden curls. A Westmore gave Rudolph Valentino his famous (and much-copied) slicked-back hairstyle. A Westmore dusted the brows of Rhett, Scarlett and all the rest in “Gone With the Wind.”
Also: The Westmores gave a certain future president’s heavy thatch of hair its trademark right part. A Westmore gave the screen pugilists Raging Bull and Rocky pulverized visages that helped the actors playing them achieve career-defining performances still etched in audiences’ consciousness.
And it was a Westmore — Michael George Westmore — who recently won the Academy Award for his makeup work in the motion picture, “Mask,” about a teen-age boy suffering from a disease that left his head terribly deformed.
This Westmore came here recently from his Studio City home to promote his new line of cosmetics (“Hollywood Magic,” what else?) and to discuss his and his family’s experiences in Hollywood.
He also offered insights into a little-publicized and distinctly un-Hollywoodish sidelight — using the cumulative knowledge of the Westmore craft with cosmetics to improve faces disfigured by accidents, cancer, burns, cleft lips and birthmarks.
“My most complex film makeup job was on ‘Mask,’” said Westmore, who won his Oscar in tandem with Zoltan Elek. “We worked for months trying different versions of the makeup on my son, Michael Jr., at home.
“We tried nose bridges, lower jaws, foreheads, eye sockets. We wanted him to be able to move his face naturally, that was the tough part.
“When we finally got it the way we wanted for the film, it took three hours a day to apply, every day, for three months. But it was so close to the way Rocky Dennis really looked that a couple from Monrovia (Calif).) who had known him came up to actor Eric Stoltz one day on the set, thinking it was Dennis. They didn’t know that Rocky had died several years before.
“I think my most challenging work, though, may have been for TV in “Why Me?”, about a girl who had her face ripped off in an automobile accident. She caught her face in the steering wheel. The doctor who had done the actual surgery served as my consultant, and I actually created the step-by-step look of the girl as her face was brought back.
“The longest and most involved makeup process was for ‘Raging Bull’ (with Robert DeNiro in his 1980 Oscar-winning role as prizefighter Jake Lamotta). There had to be a continuity to it — there was so much going on. But people would come up to DeNiro on the set during the shooting and think that that was the way he looked, with that big flattened boxer’s nose.”
Westmore also expressed pride in a makeup job he his certain very few moviegoers noticed — that on Burgess Meredith as Mickey, the wizened pug-turned-trainer in the “Rocky” films (Westmore worked on the first three installments).
“Look at that,” the makeup man said flashing a glossy black-and-white photo of Meredith in character. “You can’t see the makeup. It looks real — but there are plastic eyelids, a plastic nose, nose plugs and fake cauliflower ears.”
Westmore also produced photos of his makeup work on actor Keir Dullea in the film, “2010,” the sequel to “2001: A Space Odyssey.”
“That cost $20,000 to develop, a month to build and was on the screen less than two minutes,” Westmore said of the job to make Dullea, who was in his late 40s at the time, look like an ancient man. Westmore used eight major latex applications to Dullea’s face, a bald cap, hair lace wig and eyebrows, as well as fingernails and teeth sculpted in plastic.
The total makeup time, with the aid of assistants, was six hours. Still, advances in makeup prosthetics since the original “2001,” which also featured Dullea, spared the actor much discomfort.
Indeed, Westmore combines a knowledge of the latest makeup techniques with an understanding of the craft that dates from his grandfather, George, a wigmaker to the British crown, who packed his bags and left the Isle of Wight for Hollywood at the turn of the century.
The latter’s early success in making up Douglas Fairbanks Sr., Mary Pickford and Theda Bara led him to establish Hollywood’s first self-standing makeup studio for motion pictures in 1917.
In subsequent years, five of George’s sons became heads of makeup departments at various studios: Monty (Michael’s father) for Selznick International, working on the likes of “Gone With the Wind”; twins Perc and Ern, who between them headed Warner Brothers, RKO and 20th Century-Fox; Wally at Paramount, overseeing the original “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”; and Bud at Universal. A sixth son, Frank, was a freelancer favored by Cecil B. DeMille, his projects for the legendary producer-director included “The Ten Commandments.”
George and his sons are all gone now — Frank, the last, died in 1985 at 62 — but their legacy thrives in Michael’s work.
Michael is a UC-Santa Barbara art history graduate with a nearly quarter-century of Hollywood experience.
Among his other credits: “First Blood” (introducing Rambo), “Iceman,” “Blade Runner,” “True Confessions,” “New York, New York,” “Victory,” “The List of Adrian Messenger” and “The Andromeda Strain.”
His TV work includes “Eleanor and Franklin,” “Why Me?”, “Three Wishes of Billy Grier” (each of those three earned him Emmy Awards), “The Burning Bed,” “The Day After” and “The Rape of Richard Beck.”
Westmore served as director of the special makeup lab at Universal Studios before forming M.G. Westmore Ltd., a lab for special makeup and makeup effects, in 1971. He is a freelance makeup artist these days.
These pursuits, and marketing Hollywood Magic (sold door-to-door) and a videocassette (“Makeup Secrets of the Hollywood Stars: Looking Your Best”) have kept Westmore from being as active as he once was in a particularly satisfying endeavor — designing makeup for those who have been disfigured.
Westmore has collaborated on chapters in three medical books on plastic surgery, burn patients and reconstructive dentistry, but now has time only to consult on special cases. Instead, he has taught nurses to apply special makeup such as dermatologically tested cosmetics and adhesives that will not tear flesh.
He told of designing makeup of a man who had not left his house for two years because his jaw had been eaten away by cancer, and for a 14-year-old girl who had lost an ear, most of her nose, her lips, fingers and eyebrows in a fiery freeway accident.
Those incidents made this descendant of Hollywood’s greatest makeup dynasty realize that beauty, after all, is only skin deep.
“When you first see these people, you have feelings of sympathy, of horror,” Westmore said. “But when you meet and talk with them, you realize they’re just like you and me. They want to be loved.
“People are like apples. You can peel back all these layers, but there’s still the basic person inside. Makeup is just a facade.”
