'Godfather of Makeup' Dick Smith Dead at 92

NEW YORK (AP) — Dick Smith, the Oscar-winning “Godfather of Makeup” who amused and fascinated moviegoers by devising unforgettable transformations of Marlon Brando in “The Godfather” and Linda Blair in “The Exorcist,” among others, has died. He was 92.

Smith, the first makeup artist to win an Academy Award for lifetime achievement, died Wednesday in California of natural causes. His death was confirmed to The Associated Press by Sue Cabral-Ebert of the Make-up Artists and Hairstylists Guild. She provided no further details.

Smith transformed the middle-aged Brando into the jowly patriarch Vito Corleone, the teenage Blair into a terrifying demon, and William Hurt into a mass of protoplasm for “Altered States.” Smith won an Oscar in 1985 for his work on “Amadeus,” for which he turned F. Murray Abraham into an elderly man as Mozart’s rival Salieri.