The most legendary movie poster artist of all time, Drew Struzan has died. He was 78. A cause of death was not immediately available.
A post on his social media accounts today stated that Struzan passed away yesterday, adding that: “I feel it is important that you all know how many times he expressed to me the joy he felt knowing how much you appreciated his art.”
Struzan’s wife, Dylan, announced in March that he had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease several years ago.
Originally creating album covers for records, he began working on film posters in 1975 with movies like “Empire of the Ants”. He really broke into the mainstream with his work on the poster for the 1978 re-release of “Star Wars” alongside Charles White III.
He continued working with George Lucas, designing several legendary posters for the Star Wars sequels and then later ths prequels, as well as his iconic posters for the “Indiana Jones” franchise.
He also design posters for numerous other films directed by Steven Spielberg, including the one-sheets for “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial” and “Hook” as well as Bob Zemeckis’ “Back to the Future,” Richard Donner’s “The Goonies,” Ridley Scott’s “Blade Runner,” Frank Darabont’s “The Shawshank Redemption” and “The Green Mile”.
He also did the posters for John Carpenter’s “The Thing,” Chris Columbus’ “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone,” James Frawley’s “The Muppet Movie,”Hal Needham’s “The Cannonball Run” Ted Kotcheff’a “First Blood,” John Landis’ “Coming to America,” Paul Brickman’s “Risky Business,” Don Bluth’s “An American Tail,” Kenny Ortega’s “Hocus Pocus,” and Guillermo del Toro’s “Hellboy” among many others.
Outside of his poster work, Struzan also designed comic book covers, postage stamps, and a reissue of the board game Clue. A 2013 documentary about the man, “Drew: The Man Behind the Poster,” was released in 2013.
The news follows the passing of fellow poster artist Renato Casaro on September 30th, the Italian designer who did the famed one-sheets for “Conan the Barbarian,” “Flash Gordon,” “Solaris,” “The Neverending Story,” “Octopussy,” Lynch’s “Dune,” “Misery” and more.
UPDATE: Lucas himself has issued a statement: “Drew was an artist of the highest order. His illustrations fully captured the excitement, tone and spirit of each of my films his artwork represented. His creativity, through a single illustrated image, opened up a world full of life in vivid color… even at a glance. I was lucky to have worked with him time and time again.”
