Steve LaPorte

As a youth, Steve was always intrigued by art, magic, model building & making things with his hands. Born in Oklahoma City, during High School he also attended Vocational School studying Commercial Art. He graduated in 1974 with a Scholarship in Commercial Art to Oklahoma State Tech. That Summer, on a whim, Steve auditioned for Ringling Bros. & Barnum & Bailey's Clown College during the Circus' stay in Oklahoma City. A month later just before leaving for college the call came that changed his life forever. He had been 1 of 48 accepted out of 3,500 applicants to attend the next class of '74, Clown College. Plans changed & soon he was on a bus to Venice, Florida for months of intense physical training in the comedic circus arts. Introduced to makeup, costume, prop making & a multitude of skills he was offered a contract with the Circus. From his small room on the Circus train he soon began studying theatrical makeup & prosthetics. After 4 years touring the U.S. as Clown & High Stilt Walker, including 2 years as Boss Clown, (the youngest ever at that time). Steve settled in California & began a steady climb into the Film Industry. Looking for any kind of work, Steve hired on as the "Hulk" makeup artist for Universal tour's Land of a Thousand Faces & Castle Dracula's live makeup shows. From there he met Fred Phillips who hired him to make double masks & prosthetics for, "Under the Rainbow" where he met, Ve Neill. He finally found his way to the Burman Studio and his mentor, Tom Burman. Over the next few years, Steve worked on "Star Trek 3, the Search for Spock", "Buckaroo Bonzai" & various projects at Tom's Studio. There, he also met Stan Winston & eventually found his way to Rick Baker's front door. Rick gave him a list of things to work on & said to call back in a year. After a year & a phone call he was referred to & hired by Rob Bottin for his crew on "The Howling". From '79 to '84, he worked steadily on over 12 feature films, several commercials, print work, inner ear & baby models for 2 TV specials, all the while still performing as Clown & high Stilt Walker for various commercials & productions. He also got married & started a family. The first big makeup job was in 1982 creating & applying prosthetics for the film, "Slapstick of Another Kind", starring Jerry Lewis & Madeline Kahn. I did Jerry's makeup & Ve Neill took care of Madeline. He then represented the Burman Studio as the on set makeup effects artist for, "Spacehunter, Adventures into the Forbidden Zone". Steve eventually opened his first makeup studio in 1982, Steve LaPorte Creations, to design aging & prosthetic makeup for Gary Busey's film, "The Bear" & for Max Gail as Babe Ruth for a one man show on Broadway, "The Babe". The studio operated until he was offered a position in 1984 at NBC studios running their makeup lab & entry into Local 706. Soon after acquiring his union television days, Tom Burman called with a chance to work in his lab for, "Goonies" which also allowed him to obtain his union film days during the week & still keep his commitments at NBC on weekends. Two weeks after completing a year's commitment at NBC, another mentor, Ken Chase called Steve to join him on location as his second for "The Color Purple". where he aged Whoopie Goldberg, Oprah Winfrey, Danny Glover & an array of other cast members. Afterwards, Ken asked him along for "Golden Child", as his key artist & lab technician. Then came, "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" where they produced prosthetics for Christopher Lloyd's Judge Doom character. Steve opened another makeup studio in 1990, Just in time for a flurry of work on the body doubles for "Thelma & Louise" & 35 characters for a chase through a wax museum in "Class Act". He did big makeup music videos for David Lee Roth ("Going Crazy"), The Cars ("You are the Girl"), Huey Lewis & the News ("Doing it all for My Baby"), Warrant ("Cherry Pie") & "Mother Goose Rock-n-Rhyme" for Shelly Duval, earning a Cable Ace nomination. After a call from friend Jeff Dawn to work on Terminator 2, he downsized & moved everything to a more manageable home studio & made a shift to more on set & supervisory projects. The Terminator 2 & 3 films were especially groundbreaking as far as blending makeup & digital effects & a great chance to work with the Stan Winston Studio & James Cameron. On both films he joined Jeff for all the prosthetic application on Arnold & organized the daily appliance inventories from Stan Winston's Studio. T-2 won Jeff & Stan an Oscar for the complex makeup & T-3 proved to be an even more advanced challenge as they combined prosthetics & facial green screen for realistic, groundbreaking, digital/makeup effects. As a 31 year Motion Picture Academy Member, Steve served on the Makeup Awards committee, which oversees the Academy Award for Makeup from 1990 to 2004, including a year as chairman of the committee. Two decades of feature films led to his position as Makeup Designer & Dept. Head for ABC's "Lost" for 6 seasons & 116 episodes. In addition to Dept. Head & Makeup effects Designer, he sculpted, molded & fabricated all of the prosthetics on site in Hawaii for the series. Much of his work ranges from broad prosthetics to subtle & out of kit, using small character prosthetics, colors & basic materials for creating 3 dimensional effects or enhancing a makeup. Over the years he's led classes for Local 706 members in Character, Makeup Effects, Facial Hair & even Clown makeup. While on "Lost" & continuing on, he developed & marketed the "Port-a-Case" set bag, followed by the "FaceMaker Series" line of character cream makeup pallets. After "Lost", he returned to feature films, "Pirates of the Caribbean, On Stranger Tides", "Battleship", " X-Men, First Class" & "Oz, the Great & Powerful" as background Supervisor & Dept. Head for additional shooting in L.A. Then back into television as Dept. Head. & Makeup effects designer on, "Intelligence", "Bosch", Makeup effects for "Longmire" & finally winding down with three seasons on "Code Black", based on the award winning documentary about L.A. County's hospital & trauma center. "Code Black" is best described as "ER" on steroids & was a Makeup Magic dream come true. Prosthetic designs & application for "Roswell" & "Black Monday" brought an end to a long chapter in his career. The road from greasepaint & sawdust to a fantastic medium of rubber, silicone & visual magic has been full of everything Steve set out to achieve plus a lot more. To give back to the next generation of makeup artists through teaching & mentoring is in his next chapter. 2020 marks his 45th year anniversary in the entertainment arena & 41 years as an industry makeup artist & technician. Awards include, an Oscar & a Saturn Award for "Beetlejuice", (1989), a Primetime Emmy for "X-Files", (1999), Makeup Guild Award for "Breaking Bad", (2014) & the Oklahoma Film Icon Award, (2019). Now actively-retired, Steve maintains his own home studio for special projects & consultation through his LLC, Freeform Enterprises. He is expanding his horizons to writing, education, art & product development. Steve also acted as educational consultant to Ve Neill at Cinema Makeup School,( 2018-2020) in Los Angeles. Additionally, he will be Guest Instructor & consultant for Ve at Legends Makeup Academy. He can often be seen giving lectures & demonstrations at the International Makeup Trade Show & Monsterpalooza in Pasadena & Burbank, Ca. Steve's plans for 2021 also include, designing & building limited edition, Artisan cases under his trademark, Port-a-Case.