Colin Cantwell: Star Wars designer behind Death Star and X-wing dies at 90 | News about Ant-Man & Art
The man who designed and built Star Wars including the Death Star, TIE fighter, Star Destroyer and X-wing has died at the age of 90.
His partner confirmed to The Hollywood Reporter that he passed away Saturday at his home in Colorado.
Colin Cantwell came up with prototypes for the original Star Wars films – working with other artists to further develop iconic designs.
He got the job after working on other sci-fi classics, such as Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters Of The Third Kind and Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Cantwell was also the computer graphics consultant for the 1983 film War Games.
The famous design image of the Death Star at an event in Japan in 2016. Photo: AP
Born in San Francisco in 1932, he studied animation at the University of California at LA and also attended the prestigious Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture.
In the 1960s, he created educational programs for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, so that people could better understand space flights.
He also acted as a live update messenger for US newsreader Walter Cronkite on his famous 1969 moon landing broadcast.
In addition to his film work, he has written two science fiction books.
