Trailblazing make-up artist Greg Cannom learned the fundamentals of his craft by reading monster magazines. During his studies at Cypress College in southern California, he also worked seasonally at Knott's Halloween Haunt theme park, where his passion for the horror genre continued to grow. This fascination eventually led to a long-standing collaboration with special make-up effects creator Rick Baker on films such as The Incredible Melting Man (1977),The Fury (1978),and It Lives Again (1978),as well as the iconic music video Michael Jackson: Thriller (1983).
Throughout his distinguished career, Cannom transformed actors into a wide range of characters, including aliens, werewolves, vampires, and assorted monsters. He particularly excelled at creating old age make-up, as seen in Gary Oldman's desiccated appearance in Dracula (1992) and Robin Williams's ageing android in Bicentennial Man (1999). He also crafted the green make-up and fake teeth for Jim Carrey in The Mask (1994),which took four hours to apply.
Cannom's impressive portfolio includes the penguin hands for Danny DeVito in Batman Returns (1992),foam latex facial applications, fangs, and glowing red contact lenses for The Lost Boys (1987),vampire make-up for Blade (1998),and the diverse prosthetics for Igor and other Dracula minions in Van Helsing (2004). He made notable contributions to various instalments of established franchises, such as Star Trek, Nightmare on Elm Street, Alien, and Pirates of the Caribbean, as well as stand-alone box-office hits like Hoffa (1992),Titanic (1997),A Beautiful Mind (2001),Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003),and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008).
Greg Cannom's impressive body of work earned him five Academy Awards, including one for Technical Achievement in 2005, and another for his transformation of Christian Bale into Dick Cheney for Adam McKay's political satire Vice (2018). He was featured on the premiere issue cover of Make-Up Artist Magazine and served as an instructor for Local 706, the Make-up Artists and Hair Stylists Guild, who presented him with a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2018.
