Close Encounters Make-Up Artist Westmoreland Dies

Posted by Harris Lentz in OBITS by Harris Lentz, III on November 6th, 2009

Make-up artist Bob Westmoreland was best known for his work on Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind. He worked on make-up for the 1977 sci-fi classic, and appeared onscreen in a small role as a load dispatcher.

Westmoreland began working in films and television in the early 1970s, and provided make-up for such films as Hammer (1972), Love Me Deadly (1973), Slaughter’s Big Rip-Off (1973), the tele-film Satan’s Triangle (1975), Friday Foster (1975), the 1978 remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Ravagers (1979), Spielberg’s 1941 (1979), The Island (1980) again appearing on screen in a small role, and Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983).

Westmoreland died of cardiac arrest in Kauai, Hawaii, on October 6, 2009, at age 74.

Written by Harris Lentz III