The First Makeup Oscar Ever Given Went To A Werewolf

In 1941, Jack Pierce glued yak hair onto Lon Chaney Jr's face one strand at a time. Six hours to put on. An hour to take off. They shot a stage, added more hair, shot again, and dissolved the stages together. Ten hours of Chaney's day for a few seconds on screen, and in the finished film you mostly just see his feet.Forty years later John Landis did the opposite. He put a werewolf in a warm, bright apartment with the lamps on and pointed the camera straight at it.It worked because there was nothing to hide. Under the foam latex, Rick Baker's team buried rubber bladders connected to tubes running out of frame. An operator pushed air in on a specific frame and the skin rose. Bone does not swell, so hydraulic forms drove the snout out from the inside. Naughton's lower half was fixed under the floor. The hair was glued on and trimmed between takes, and the shots were run in reverse.Until 1981 there was no Oscar for makeup at all. The first one ever given went to a werewolf.Which transformation still holds up best?