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Stuart Freeborn | Film makeup artist, 98

Stuart Freeborn, 98, a pioneering movie makeup artist who created creatures for 2001: A Space Odyssey and the Star Wars films, died Tuesday in London from a combination of age-related ailments, his granddaughter Michelle Freeborn said.

Stuart Freeborn, 98, a pioneering movie makeup artist who created creatures for

2001: A Space Odyssey

and the

Star Wars

films, died Tuesday in London from a combination of age-related ailments, his granddaughter Michelle Freeborn said.

Star Wars creator George Lucas said in a statement that Mr. Freeborn was "a makeup legend" whose artistry would live forever.

After Royal Air Force service during World War II, he worked on British cinema classics including David Lean's 1948 version of Oliver Twist. His transformation of Alec Guinness into Fagin was criticized by some as anti-Semitic, a matter of regret for Mr. Freeborn, who said he was partly Jewish.

He later worked with Stanley Kubrick, transforming Peter Sellers into multiple characters for Dr. Strangelove before designing the apes in a memorable sequence of 2001.

But he will likely be best remembered for his work on Star Wars - helping create the wise Jedi knight Yoda, a diminutive figure whose features were partly inspired by Albert Einstein and partly by Mr. Freeborn himself, and Chewbacca, the 7-foot-tall Wookiee.

Nick Maley, a makeup artist who worked with Mr. Freeborn in the 1970s, said: "Everybody will remember him for Star Wars, but he did so much more than that." - AP