John Chambers worked out of his home in a blue collar neighborhood in Burbank, California, just a few short blocks from Disney Studios, where the likes of Lana Turner, Howard Keel, Leonard Nimoy, Marlon Brando, Mickey Rooney, and Lee Marvin could be found sitting for a set of teeth, getting a fitting for an Indianesque nose, acquiring the trademark pointed ears for their characters, respectively.
Indeed, Chambers was the special effects master, stamping his influence with his work in such movies and television series as Planet of the Apes, The List of Adrian Messenger, The Outer Limits, The Munsters, Lost in Space, and Mission: Impossible.
Though he developed many of his makeup innovations in the 1950s and 1960s, they are still in use today. His custom design skull caps, for instance, are a standard in the business.
It is perhaps with Planet of the Apes that Chambers experienced one of his greatest challenges. His preparation and research for the movie included so much time spent making notes and drawings of monkeys at the Los Angeles Zoo, that he became something of a zoo fixture and a drawer himself.
For his efforts, before the Motion Picture Academy decided in 1981 to designate a category for a makeup award, Chambers received an honorary Academy Award at the 1969 Oscars ceremony. Through his career, Chambers has received many other honors, most notably an Emmy Award and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Not unlike many a professional, he began his career in the United States Army during World War II, where he served as a dental technician. It was in this capacity that he found himself working with the scars of war - actually, working against the scars of war - and gaining a great deal of knowledge of repairing more than teeth: entire faces.
His experience with creating new ears, noses, and chins, as well as teeth, for veterans ravaged by war, landed Chambers at NBC in 1953 with a job in makeup. His wartime experiences also influenced Chambers to use his skills to help indigent cancer victims acquire prosthetics against the ravages of another kind of war.
Through his life he took many artists under his wing, giving guidance and training to the likes of Michael Westmore, Maurice Stein, Thomas R. Burman, Michael McCracken, David Dittmar, and other accomplished makeup artists, asking only in return that they "pay it forward".
Retired since 1982, John Chambers died of diabetes at a hospital in Woodland Hills, California on August 25, 2001.
