Michael Westmore: A Career in Make-up

[Takara_Soong 4]

MICHAEL WESTMORE

 

In 1961, Michael Westmore began his apprenticeship in make-up. Four decades later, he's an integral part of one of the most enduring, legendary franchises in Hollywood.

 

In the mid-1960s, Westmore worked with make-up legend John Chambers on the classic monster comedy The Munsters. "I made up Butch Patrick as Eddie Munster and did a straight make-up on Pat Priest as Marilyn,? he remembers. ?After I finished making up the actors, I ran all of the foam latex in the lab. I would run a new head and bolts for Herman and new ear tips for Eddie." After successful work in films such as "Rocky," "Raging Bull" and "Mask," Michael joined the world of Star Trek in 1987 to supervise The Next Generation. Now, in his 16th season as make-up designer and supervisor of all TV shows and films in the Trek universe, Westmore takes a moment to reflect on his long career.

 

Michael, how would you describe yourself after all these years?

 

You know, it's funny, you get a piece of paper and it says "occupation" and I still write down "make-up artist." The job here, especially here at Star Trek, has turned into something more than what you do on a usual show in spending a good part of my day having to coordinate instead of doing make-up, and following through and watching things. When you're doing two shows of this magnitude ... I mean, it was easier doing 20 shows at Universal that were half-hour sitcoms than it is to do these two shows. It's a full day job and when the show started off there were two make-up artists and two hairdressers, and I did all the labwork. I did all the sculpting, all the mold-making, ran all the rubber. And then the writers wrote more and I had to add a third person and they wrote a little more to the point where I have five people on each crew, and, on a daily basis, anywhere from one to 30 make-up artists and hairstylists. So, it's turned into, literally, a giant feature as opposed to a small television show. So my job is basically to design and supervise now.

 

Now, you'll design particular make-up, let's say, for an alien. What's the process at that point?

 

You read the script, get your thoughts out of the script in the first part of the designing. And then to get a feel whether it's a good guy or a bad guy, a big guy or little guy. Does he fly, does he crawl, does he swim? Then try to incorporate something into that character that people are familiar with, instead of trying to design something totally apart from it, putting wings on an alien that came from a fish planet or doing something like that, and trying to convince the audience that he flies through the water. I may take the snout off a turtle and the bone structure off the back of an alligator, and some bumps on the top of the head off of a grasshopper. And though it looks strange, it's still things that people are familiar with. It makes my job a lot easier than trying to sit down and create something totally off the wall by actually using nature to work from. Nature, down to the point of birds high in the sky or something that's under a microscope or a fish that's in the bottom of the ocean. Using everything. Plants for textures, microscopic landscapes that you find in microbes and things for textures. I take subscriptions to almost anything you can think of every month. In fact, this pile on the desk here are books I haven't gone through yet, that I will tear pages out of, file the pages, and I'll have files of noses, ears, foreheads, and so, when I read the script and we need something new, I can pull my files out and start going through them. When I use something, I take it out and put it in a dead file so that I never go back and use it again.

 

Now when you design and sculpt these, or do you design and sculpt, or do you just design?

 

I design. If everybody is busy and we need a nose, I'll sit down and whip out a nose. I don't have time to do something big, like a full head If it's just a forehead, I'll take something and rough it out, it's easier for me to do that. In fact, behind me is my sculpting kit, and I'll rough it out for the make-up artists and then give it to him and say, "This is what Rick Berman and I have discussed and this is the direction he wants to go in."

 

How would you describe your responsibilities once the make-up artists have your designs and they are actually working on it?

 

To make sure that it's exactly the way Rick Berman wants it. Because, if there is a problem, I'm the only person it comes back on if it doesn't work good and it doesn't turn out right. So, that's were my supervising end comes into it, my creative end is over where the supervising end comes in, in having to follow through right up to the point of going on camera. To make sure there isn't white inside the ear. If it's supposed to have eyebrows, it has eyebrows [and] it's painted properly and everything.

 

What techniques, if you could try to narrow it down, did you pick up from your famous uncles, the Westmores of Hollywood?

 

I think the main thing that I picked up from them is the old cliche, "It's all in the eye of the beholder," [which] is so true. Not only did I learn that from my uncles, but I also learned it from John Chambers, who I apprenticed. I visited him last Sunday. I [hadn't] seen him for years. I was John's first apprentice when he left television and moved into the feature end of the business. I would cry on John's shoulder and say, "Why does everyone criticize my work? I mean, you see literally a bunch of crap on the tube and on the screen, I can't do something like that. If I did a piece of work like that, people would be all over me. I've never worked for a producer or director or company that would let me get away with that! How come I get picked on all the time?!" This is where I learned that what's good and what's bad is all in the eye of the beholder. I wasn't lucky enough to work on a crappy show where somebody thought that that work was sufficient and was good enough to let go. I found that I used my family as a sounding board. When I sculpted something that pleased me, I would take it up to the house and they'd all criticize it, even the kids. So I'd say that a lot of my success is really in my eye, of my beholding. I'm critical of myself. I have a feeling for what reality is and fantasy. I won't settle for second best and slough it off and say, "Nah, it's okay, it'll be okay." I can't do that because I can't rest with that.

 

So it sounds like you had to learn the supervisory position to be comfortable with it.

 

And I still don't like it! I really don't like having to tell people what to do. Especially when they have their own creative thoughts. But, if they do work into what I'm thinking about, that's fine. I mean, a lot of times, I'll give them something to do and they'll veer off from it and it'll be great! And I know Rick will buy it and I won't say, "No, that's not what I had in mind." That's a good idea. Let's go with it. That's great! Because I know that Rick will buy that suggestion, that change. Then again, somebody might do something that would be horrible.

 

Now, you come from this historic family. What do you hope, when it's all said and done, that Michael Westmore leaves here with?

 

You can say "John Chambers" to one of these new people, they have no idea who he is. They haven't even seen "Planet of the Apes." The same thing with what I'm doing. My legacy is really going to be Star Trek. A hundred years from now, they'll still be showing these shows. And probably we'll be doing The Next Next Generation in 2090, you know. When Rick's gone, someone else will come along and make a gorilla that's made out of a new material and something else, and we'll all be has-beens. Also, during my tenure on Star Trek, I have made more molds than anyone in Hollywood, especially for little pieces like foreheads, fingers and noses. I turn out at least a ton of plaster on each show every season, all stored at Paramount. I throw nothing away in case the producers decide to bring older characters back. We've accumulated 20 tons of plaster.

 

On that note, with all your Emmys and Oscar nominations, you've had quite a career.

 

It's really been a lot of work and I've enjoyed all of it. I can't say that I've really had any bad experiences. I've made the most of them, even when it's bad. Whether it would be living conditions or transportation or getting lost or being late or whatever. I really haven't had any developing pressures. There's always been pressure to try to get it done. Not to say that I'm not enjoying myself. I'm doing something that I like doing. I'm not having to go to work in a factory. I get to do something that I had dreams of as I child.

 

I think it's safe to say you are a Westmore, but you are also your own man.

 

I'd say that this is a very interesting time [and] that the old Hollywood was very tough, although it seemed very glamorous. You worked six days a week, long hours. Even [with] the unions and union rules, they still worked your but off. My mother worked six days a week. She came home at six o'clock Saturday night, that was considered a half-day on Saturday. Sunday you needed to recover. You had to rest to be able to go back to work on Monday. Although you had a lot of fun, you did a lot of big musicals and rah, rah, rah, it's still work. If I literally had to continue doing make-ups now, I suppose it wouldn't be as satisfying as doing what I'm doing now. When you're doing one make-up, you're working on one individual to try to create this thing and send it out. But I don't! I get to stand back and create the whole scene. It's not like I just watch my one character. I've got a big responsibility.