In Remembrance: William Tuttle

     William “Bill” Tuttle, the pioneering Hollywood makeup artist whose work transforming Tony Randall into The Seven Faces Of Dr. Lao moved the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to award its first special Academy Award for Achievement in Make Up has died July 30, 2007 in Pacific Palisades, CA. He was 95.

     During his 35-year career at MGM Studios, Tuttle trained numerous young makeup artists and developed innovative techniques for both glamour and effects makeups. In addition to his work on The Seven Faces Of Dr. Lao, where he created several distinct character makeups for Randall, Tuttle also created the look of the Morlocks in the 1960 classic The Time Machine and transformed Peter Boyle into the Monster of Mel Brooks’ comedy Young Frankenstein (1974).

     Tuttle was also known for his more traditional makeup work, glamorizing the likes of numerous Hollywood stars including Fred Astaire and Jane Powell in Royal Wedding (1951), Gene Kelly and Leslie Caron in An American In Paris (1951), Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn in Pat And Mike (1952), Esther Williams in Million Dollar Mermaid (1952), Kathryn Grayson and Howard Keel in Kiss Me Kate (1953), Frank Sinatra and Debbie Reynolds in The Tender Trap (1955) and Bing Crosby and Grace Kelly in High Society (1956). In total, Tuttle worked on nearly 350 films over his four-and-a-half decade career.

     For television’s The Twilight Zone, Tuttle’s work served to punctuate the twist ending of the episode “Eye Of The Beholder.” In the episode, doctors and nurses, faces hidden by shadow, work feverishly on a young woman who wants her deformed famous to be made to like a normal person. When the bandages are removed, the doctors discover that their efforts have failed. While the audience sees the patient as a beautiful young woman, played by future Beverly Hillbilly Donna Douglas, the doctors and nurses are revealed to have large, twisted lips and pig-like noses. After he turned fifteen, he dropped out of school to help support his mother and younger brother Thomas. At age 18, he moved to Los Angeles, enrolling in art classes at University of Southern California.

     Landing an apprenticeship at Twentieth Century Fox, Tuttle found himself in the makeup department studying under department head Jack Dawn. In 1934, Dawn moved to MGM Studios, taking Tuttle with him. Some of his earliest work was creating a bullet wound for Bela Lugosi’s character in Mark Of The Vampire (1935) and work on The Wizard Of Oz (1939). After Dawn retired, Tuttle took charge of the makeup department, running it for over two decades.

     Working under studio chief Louis B. Mayer’s directive that “all women should appear beautiful and all men should be handsome," Tuttle constantly strove to create new makeup techniques throughout his career. In 1975 he unveiled a line of cosmetics, Custom Color Cosmetics, which were used extensively in the industry for two decades.

     When MGM began downsizing in the mid-1970s, Tuttle was forced to close the studio’s makeup department. He continued to work in films for a few more years before retiring after finishing work on the comedy Zorro, The Gay Blade (1981). He also taught at USC from 1970 to 1995.