Grant McCune, who won an Oscar for his model work on ‘Star Wars’, has died of pancreatic cancer.
The 67-year-old McCune, who was also nominated for an Oscar for his work on ‘Star Trek: The Motion Picture’, died Monday at his home in California. Besides creating scenes with models and miniatures for 1977’s ‘Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope’, McCune also worked on ‘Battlestar Galactica’ (1978), ‘Lifeforce’, ‘Spaceballs’, ‘Batman Forever’ ‘Red Planet’, ‘Spider-Man’, ‘Serenity’, and ‘Sphere’.
He is survived by his wife, Katherine; a son, Cole; a daughter, Lily; and a sister, Shelley.
Dirk Van Tilborg
After reading Jack Kirby’s Forever People and New Gods comic books and watching 2001: A Space Odyssey, Dirk was assimilated during first grade recess into the collective known as Science Fiction. Fueled by the visions of mad scientists such as Philip K. Dick and Frank Herbert, he has quietly searched the galaxy for the next BladeRunner, Brazil and Dark City. Born in San Francisco and currently enjoying a steampunk version of Ft. Lauderdale, when not grokking Science Fiction he spends his time with family and friends and just maybe trying to enter the dreams of disingenuous politicians.