Jack Dawn (February 10, 1892 – June 20, 1961) was an American make-up artist whose career spanned thirty-seven years. He worked on more than two hundred films, many of them regarded as classics by historians and moviegoers alike.
As a boy living on a Kentucky farm, Dawn chopped faces in sandstone he found on the banks of a nearby creek, using a chisel, a hammer, and a spoon. He eventually gravitated to Hollywood, where he found work as an extra, portraying an Indian brave for $3 a day. He served with the British during World War I, then returned to the American film capital to work as a make-up assistant and part-time actor at Universal Pictures. One of his first creations was a stiff, uncomfortable mask he wore in the role of an ape in 1925. In order to make masks that were more elastic and lifelike, he began to experiment with a variety of materials. After nine years of research while working at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, he developed a synthetic plastic he called vinylite resin for which he received a patent. Its first application was used to create the Chinese faces for the mostly white cast of The Good Earth in 1937.
Two years later, Dawn was assigned the task of giving life to three non-human characters – a scarecrow, a tin man, and a lion – in MGM’s now-classic musical film The Wizard of Oz, based on L. Frank Baum’s novel. He also created the green makeup for Wicked Witch of the West Margaret Hamilton and multiple looks for Frank Morgan, who portrayed five different characters in the film, as well as for the Munchkins. His work resulted in some of the most recognizable makeup designs ever created for a Hollywood production.
In 1943, Dawn approached the San Diego Naval Hospital with an offer to help World War II soldiers whose faces and hands had been disfigured in battle. He created inlays that helped patients appear normal between multiple plastic surgery operations.
Dawn worked with many of Hollywood’s legendary performers, including Laurel and Hardy, Greta Garbo, Mickey Rooney, Judy Garland, Bert Lahr, Ray Bolger, Jack Haley, Greer Garson, Clark Gable, Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn, Lucille Ball, Ingrid Bergman, Elizabeth Taylor, Frank Sinatra, Gene Kelly, Ginger Rogers, Lana Turner, Fred Astaire, and Betty Hutton.
Dawn died in Glendale, California, five years after retiring from films. He was buried with an unmarked grave in Glendale’s Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery.
Jack Dawn Biography / Wiki
| Name | Jack Dawn |
| Also Know | |
| Gender | Male |
| Known For | Costume & Make-Up |
| Place of Birth | Fleming, Kentucky, USA |
| Date of Birth | 1892-02-10 |
| Age(as in 2022) | 69 |
| Deathday | 1961-06-20 |
Jack Dawn Acting Movies
| Movie Name | Character | Release Date | Overview |
| The Romance of Celluloid | Self | 1937-08-26 | Several behind the scenes aspects of the movie-making business, which results in the enjoyment the movie going public has in going to the theater, are… |
Other Info
| Movie Name | Job | Release Date | Overview |
| Meet Me in St. Louis | Makeup Artist | 1944-11-28 | In the year before the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair, the four Smith daughters learn lessons of life and love, even as they prepare for a reluctant move… |
| The Philadelphia Story | Makeup Artist | 1940-12-05 | When a rich woman’s ex-husband and a tabloid-type reporter turn up just before her planned remarriage, she begins to learn the truth about herself…. |
| Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde | Makeup Artist | 1941-08-12 | Dr. Jekyll believes good and evil exist in everyone and creates a potion that allows his evil side, Mr. Hyde, to come to the fore. He faces horrible c… |
| Adam’s Rib | Makeup Artist | 1949-11-18 | When a woman attempts to kill her uncaring husband, prosecutor Adam Bonner gets the case. Unfortunately for him his wife Amanda (who happens to be a l… |
| Mark of the Vampire | Makeup Artist | 1935-04-26 | Sir Karell Borotyn appears to have been killed by Count Mora, a vampire who prowled around his castle. One year later, Irena, Karell’s daughter, is ha… |
| The Human Comedy | Makeup Artist | 1943-03-02 | Teenager Homer Macauley stays at home in small-town Ithaca to support his family while his older brother Marcus prepares to go to war…. |
| Gaslight | Makeup Designer | 1944-05-04 | A newlywed fears she’s going mad when strange things start happening at the family mansion…. |
| 20 Mule Team | Makeup Designer | 1940-05-03 | It is 1892 in Death Valley and the yields from the Borax ore are getting so small that refining it is a losing proposition. The only thing that will s… |
| Mystery Street | Makeup Designer | 1950-06-23 | When a young woman’s skeletal remains turn up on a Massachusetts beach, Barnstable cop Peter Moralas teams with Boston police and uses forensics, with… |
| Tortilla Flat | Makeup Artist | 1942-05-21 | Danny, a poor northern Californian Mexican-American, inherits two houses from his grandfather and is quickly taken advantage of by his vagabond friend… |
| Ziegfeld Follies | Makeup Artist | 1945-08-26 | The late, great impresario Florenz Ziegfeld looks down from heaven and ordains a new revue in his grand old style…. |
| Goodbye, Mr. Chips | Makeup Artist | 1939-07-28 | A shy British teacher looks back nostalgically at his long career, taking note of the people who touched his life…. |
| Boys Town | Makeup Artist | 1938-09-08 | The devout but iron-willed Father Flanagan leads a community called Boys Town, a different sort of juvenile detention facility where, instead of being… |
| Stars in My Crown | Makeup Artist | 1950-05-11 | The story of a young pastor coming to a small town in the United States to set up his ministry. The movie tells of the various relationships and stru… |
| Neptune’s Daughter | Makeup Artist | 1949-06-10 | Scatterbrained Betty Barrett mistakes masseur Jack Spratt for Jose O’Rourke, the captain of the South American polo team. Spratt goes along with the c… |
| Miracles for Sale | Makeup Artist | 1939-08-10 | A maker of illusions for magicians protects an ingenue likely to be murdered…. |
| Broadway Serenade | Makeup Artist | 1939-04-07 | A married singer, pianist/composer team are struggling to hit it big in New York. Finally, they audition before a Broadway producer, but the producer … |
| The Canterville Ghost | Makeup Designer | 1944-07-20 | The descendent of a ghost imprisoned for cowardice hopes to free the spirit by displaying courage when under duress…. |
| The Wizard of Oz | Makeup Artist | 1939-08-15 | Young Dorothy finds herself in a magical world where she makes friends with a lion, a scarecrow and a tin man as they make their way along the yellow … |
| Easter Parade | Makeup Designer | 1948-07-08 | On the day before Easter in 1911, Don Hewes is crushed when his dancing partner (and object of affection) Nadine Hale refuses to start a new contract … |
| Father of the Bride | Makeup Designer | 1950-05-18 | Proud father Stanley Banks remembers the day his daughter, Kay, got married. Starting when she announces her engagement through to the wedding itself,… |
| Marie Antoinette | Makeup Artist | 1938-08-26 | The young Austrian princess Marie Antoinette is arranged to marry Louis XVI, future king of France, in a politically advantageous marriage for the riv… |
| Trouble for Two | Makeup Artist | 1936-05-29 | A decadent prince unhappy over an impending arranged marriage, looking for a good time in London discovers the existence of a secret society called Th… |
| Stand Up and Fight | Makeup Designer | 1939-01-06 | A southern aristocrat clashes with a driver transporting stolen slaves to freedom…. |
| The Man from Down Under | Makeup Designer | 1943-08-04 | An Australian blowhard raises two orphaned children as his own in the years leading up to WWII…. |
| The Romance of Rosy Ridge | Makeup Designer | 1947-08-04 | A mysterious Civil War veteran courts a Missouri farmer’s daughter amid postwar unrest…. |
| The Kissing Bandit | Makeup Designer | 1948-11-14 | Ricardo, the milquetoast son of a Mexican bandit, would rather lead a quiet life in Boston. But the family would rather that he follow in his father’s… |
| The Vanishing Virginian | Makeup Designer | 1942-02-01 | The perineal District Attorney and conservative southern patriarch cherishes the old ways and does his best to adjust to change…. |
| Strange Cargo | Makeup Artist | 1940-03-01 | Convicts escaping from Devil’s Island come under the influence of a strange Christ-like figure…. |
| Take Me Out to the Ball Game | Makeup Designer | 1949-03-09 | The Wolves baseball team gets steamed when they find they’ve been inherited by one K.C. Higgins, a suspected “fathead” who intends to take an active i… |
| On the Town | Makeup Artist | 1949-12-08 | Three sailors – Gabey, Chip and Ozzie – let loose on a 24-hour pass in New York and the Big Apple will never be the same! Gabey falls head over heels … |
| Undercurrent | Makeup Designer | 1946-11-11 | After a rapid engagement, a dowdy daughter of a chemist weds an industrialist, knowing little of his family or past. He transforms her into an elegant… |
| Nazi Agent | Makeup Artist | 1942-03-01 | Humble stamp dealer Otto Becker has little to do with international politics, so when he receives a surprise visit from his estranged twin brother and… |
| The Asphalt Jungle | Makeup Artist | 1950-05-12 | Recently paroled from prison, legendary burglar “Doc” Riedenschneider, with funding from Alonzo Emmerich, a crooked lawyer, gathers a small group of v… |
| On Borrowed Time | Makeup Artist | 1939-07-07 | Young Pud is orphaned and left in the care of his aged grandparents. The boy and his grandfather are inseparable. Gramps is concerned for Pud’s future… |
| Tension | Makeup Artist | 1949-11-25 | Warren Quimby manages a drugstore while trying to keep his volatile wife, Claire, happy. However, when Claire leaves him for a liquor store salesman, … |
| Madame Bovary | Makeup Artist | 1949-08-25 | Based on the French literary classic, this drama presents author Gustave Flaubert narrating his tale of infidelity and narcissism. After marrying smal… |
| The Postman Always Rings Twice | Makeup Artist | 1946-05-02 | A married woman and a drifter fall in love, then plot to murder her husband…. |
| Two Sisters from Boston | Makeup Designer | 1946-06-06 | Abigail Chandler has written her stuffy Boston relatives that she’s a successful opera singer in New York. In reality, she works at a burlesque house … |
| Comrade X | Makeup Artist | 1940-12-13 | An American reporter smuggling news out of Soviet Moscow is blackmailed into helping a beautiful Communist leave the country…. |
| Joe and Ethel Turp Call on the President | Makeup Artist | 1939-12-01 | Joe and Ethel Turp are up in arms when their faithful old mailman is fired. Unable to get satisfaction on a municipal level, Joe and Ethel plead their… |
| Bataan | Makeup Artist | 1943-06-03 | During Japan’s invasion of the Philippines in 1942, Capt. Henry Lassiter, Sgt. Bill Dane and a diverse group of American soldiers are ordered to destr… |
| The White Cliffs of Dover | Makeup Designer | 1944-05-11 | Susan travels with her father to England for a vacation. Invited to a society ball, Susan meets Sir John Ashwood and marries him after a whirlwind rom… |
| Three Little Words | Makeup Artist | 1950-07-12 | Song-and-dance man Bert Kalmar can’t continue his stage career after an injury for while, so he has to earn his money as a lyricst. Per chance he meet… |
| A Date with Judy | Makeup Artist | 1948-07-29 | Best friends Judy and Carol compete for the affection of an older man during their high school dance. As Carol tries to rekindle Judy’s relationship w… |
| Dark Delusion | Makeup Designer | 1947-06-24 | Spoiled socialite Cynthia Grace is suffering from a blood clot. Not unexpectedly, Tommy Coalt falls in love with Cynthia, much to her parents’ dismay…. |
| Thrill of a Romance | Makeup Designer | 1945-05-23 | A soldier falls in love with a newly-married woman after her husband abandons her for a business meeting on their honeymoon…. |
| Conquest | Makeup Artist | 1937-10-22 | A polish countess dispatched by her country to become Napoleon Bonaparte’s mistress at the urging of Polish leaders, who feel she might influence him … |
| Lady in the Lake | Makeup Artist | 1946-12-19 | Private detective Philip Marlowe is asked by a publishing executive, Adrienne Fromsett, to locate the wife of her boss, publisher Derace Kingsby. Earl… |
| Above Suspicion | Makeup Designer | 1943-05-31 | Two newlyweds spy on the Nazis for the British Secret Service during their honeymoon in Europe…. |
| National Velvet | Makeup Artist | 1945-01-26 | Mi Taylor is a young wanderer and opportunist who finds himself in the quiet English countryside home of the Brown family. The youngest daughter, Velv… |
| Cynthia | Makeup Artist | 1947-08-29 | Sheltered by her conservative parents, a small-town teenager finally goes out on a date…. |
| Ziegfeld Girl | Makeup Artist | 1941-04-25 | Discovery by Flo Ziegfeld changes a girl’s life but not necessarily for the better, as three beautiful women find out when they join the spectacle on … |
| They Were Expendable | Makeup & Hair | 1945-12-07 | Shortly after Pearl Harbor, a squadron of PT-boat crews in the Philippines must battle the Navy brass between skirmishes with the Japanese. The title … |
| Anchors Aweigh | Makeup Designer | 1945-08-13 | Two sailors, Joe and Clarence have four days shore leave in spend their shore leave trying to get a girl for Clarence. Clarence has his eye on a girl … |
| Lassie Come Home | Makeup Artist | 1943-12-01 | Hard times come for the Carraclough family and they are forced to sell their dog, Lassie, to the rich Duke of Rudling. Lassie, however, is unwilling t… |
| Thousands Cheer | Makeup Designer | 1943-01-01 | Acrobat Eddie Marsh is in the army now. His first act is to become friendly with Kathryn Jones, the colonel’s pretty daughter. Their romance hits a fe… |
| Song of the Thin Man | Makeup Designer | 1947-08-28 | Society sleuths Nick and Nora Charles investigate a murder in a jazz club…. |
| Escape | Makeup Designer | 1940-11-01 | An American goes to Germany to find his mother and discovers her in a concentration camp. With the help of an American-born widowed countess he seeks … |
| The Picture of Dorian Gray | Makeup Designer | 1945-03-01 | Posing for a portrait, Dorian Gray talks with Lord Henry Wotton, who says that men should pursue their sensual longings, but laments that only the you… |
| For Me and My Gal | Makeup Designer | 1942-10-21 | Two vaudeville performers fall in love, but find their relationship tested by the arrival of WWI…. |
| Green Dolphin Street | Makeup Designer | 1947-01-15 | Sophie loved Edmund, but he left town when her parents forced her to marry wealthy Octavius. Years later, Edmund returns with his son, William. Sophie… |
| The Yearling | Makeup Designer | 1946-12-18 | Jody convinces his parents to allow him to adopt a young deer, but what will happen if the deer misbehaves?… |
| Undercover Maisie | Makeup Artist | 1947-03-01 | Maisie Revere, a showgirl stranded in Los Angeles, decides to join the local police department on the persuasion of Lieutenant Paul Scott who wants to… |
| The Stratton Story | Makeup Designer | 1949-05-12 | Star major league pitcher Monty Stratton loses a leg in a hunting accident, but becomes determined to leave the game on his own terms…. |
| Pride and Prejudice | Makeup Artist | 1940-07-26 | Mr. and Mrs. Bennet have five unmarried daughters, and Mrs. Bennet is especially eager to find suitable husbands for them. When the rich single gentle… |
| Mrs. Parkington | Makeup Designer | 1944-10-12 | In this family saga, Mrs. Parkington recounts the story of her life, beginning as a hotel maid in frontier Nevada where she is swept off her feet by m… |
| Kismet | Makeup Designer | 1944-10-01 | Hafiz, a rascally beggar on the periphery of the court of Baghdad, schemes to marry his daughter to royalty and to win the heart of the queen of the c… |
| The Harvey Girls | Makeup Designer | 1946-01-18 | On a train trip West to become a mail-order bride, Susan Bradley meets a cheery crew of young women traveling out to open a “Harvey House” restaurant … |
| Duchess of Idaho | Makeup Artist | 1950-07-14 | Ellen Hallit is in love with her playboy boss, Douglas Morrison, but is too timid to do anything about it. To help her, her roommate Chris decides to … |
| The Hoodlum Saint | Makeup Artist | 1946-04-04 | A former reporter comes back home after serving in the army during World War I and finds that it’s much more difficult to find work than he expected. … |
| The Sea of Grass | Makeup Artist | 1947-04-25 | A St. Louis woman marries a New Mexico cattleman who is seen as a tyrant by the locals…. |
| The Unfinished Dance | Makeup Designer | 1947-09-19 | A young dance student accidentally cripples a teacher she doesn’t like…. |
| Big City | Makeup Artist | 1948-03-25 | A young orphan (Margaret O’Brien) in New York’s Lower East Side is collectively adopted by three neighborhood men–a minister, a cantor, and a cop…. |
| Julia Misbehaves | Makeup Artist | 1948-08-08 | Julia and William were married and soon separated by his snobbish family. They meet again many years later, when their daughter he has raised invites … |
| Summer Holiday | Makeup Artist | 1948-04-15 | Danville, Connecticut at the turn of the century. Young Richard Miller lives in a middle-class neighborhood with his family. He is in love with the gi… |
| Battleground | Makeup Artist | 1949-11-09 | The film concentrates on the camaraderie and the divisions between the troops as they ready for the big offensive. Told in a taut narrative, the men o… |
| The Red Danube | Makeup Artist | 1949-10-14 | A Russian ballerina in Vienna tries to flee KGB agents and defect…. |
| Yolanda and the Thief | Makeup Artist | 1945-11-22 | Johnny Riggs, a con man on the lam, finds himself in a Latin-American country named Patria. There, he overhears a convent-bred rich girl praying to he… |
| Annie Get Your Gun | Makeup Artist | 1950-05-01 | Gunslinger Annie Oakley romances fellow sharpshooter Frank Butler as they travel with Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show…. |
| The Great Sinner | Makeup Artist | 1949-06-29 | A young man succumbs to gambling fever…. |
| Two Smart People | Makeup Artist | 1946-06-04 | Con woman Ricki Woodner and detective Bob Simms follow a prison-bound swindler Ace Connors on his five-day gourmet binge…. |
| Son of Lassie | Makeup Designer | 1945-04-20 | Laddie (Son of Lassie) and his master are trapped in Norway during WW2 – has he inherited his mothers famous courage?… |
| Challenge to Lassie | Makeup Designer | 1949-10-31 | When Lassie’s master dies, an old friend tries to convince a judge that the dog’s life should be spared…. |
| Way Out West | Makeup Artist | 1937-04-16 | Stan and Ollie try to deliver the deed to a valuable gold mine to the daughter of a dead prospector. Unfortunately, the daughter’s evil guardian is de… |
| Good News | Makeup Designer | 1947-12-04 | At fictitious Tait University in the Roaring ’20s, co-ed and school librarian Connie Lane falls for football hero Tommy Marlowe. Unfortunately, he has… |
| The Arnelo Affair | Makeup Artist | 1947-02-13 | A neglected wife gets mixed up with an hypnotic charmer and murder…. |
| That Forsyte Woman | Makeup Designer | 1949-11-03 | Soames and Irene Forsyte have a marriage of convenience. Young Jolyon Forsyte is a black sheep who ran away with the maid after his wife’s death. Teen… |
| Hills of Home | Makeup Designer | 1948-11-25 | William McClure is the villlage doctor in a remote Scottish glen. Tricked into buying Lassie, a collie afraid of water, he sets about teaching her to … |
| Ambush | Makeup Artist | 1950-01-13 | A Westerner searches for a white woman held by the Apaches…. |
| Keeper of the Flame | Makeup Artist | 1943-04-01 | Famed reporter Stephen O’Malley travels to a small town to investigate the death of a national hero…. |
| The Three Musketeers | Makeup Designer | 1948-10-19 | Athletic adaptation of Alexandre Dumas’ classic adventure about the king’s musketeers and their mission to protect France…. |
| Nancy Goes to Rio | Makeup Artist | 1950-03-10 | Mother and daughter compete over same singing role and, unbeknownst to each other, the same man…. |
| Bathing Beauty | Makeup Designer | 1944-06-27 | After breaking up with her fiancé, a gym teacher returns to work at a women’s college, but a legal loophole allows him to enroll as one of her studen… |
Credit: TMDB
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