Film Effects Legend Ray Harryhausen Dies

He was 92

Ray Harryhausen, the visual-effects legend famed for his stop-motion work on such films as Mighty Joe Young, The 7th Voyage of Sinbad and Jason and the Argonauts, passed away this morning in London. He was 92. The announcement on the Ray and Diana Harryhausen Foundation Facebook page didn't include a cause of death.

Born in Los Angeles in 1920, Harryhausen became fascinated by animated models in 1933, when he first saw King Kong — and the creations of stop-motion animation pioneer Willis O'Brien with his childhood friend Ray Bradbury. Within two years, Harryhausen was producing his own home movies using model animation. His first professional film work came in 1947 as an assistant animator to O'Brien on Mighty Joe Young, produced by the same team that made King Kong more than a decade earlier.