Drew Struzan, the poster artist behind “Star Wars,” “Blade Runner,” “The Thing,” “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” “Back to the Future” and countless others, died Tuesday from complications related to Alzheimer’s disease, his family said in a statement. He was 78 years old.
Struzan attended ArtCenter College of Design and, after graduating, worked at the Los Angeles-based design studio Pacific Eye & Ear under Ernie Cefalu, who had worked on the Rolling Stones’ “Sticky Fingers” album cover in the early 1970s. Struzan would work on album covers for the Beaches Boys, Bee Gees and Black Sabbath during his stay, also illustrating the T-shirt George Carlin wears on the cover of his 1974 album “Toledo Window Box” and the cover of Alice Cooper’s “Welcome to My Nightmare”.
After leaving Pacific Eye & Ear, Struzan started a company called Pencil Pushers, working on stunning posters for significantly lower rates, like 1976’s “Squirm” (about killer worms) and 1977’s “Empire of the Ants” (about killer ants). His big success would come when David Weitzner, then vice president of advertising at age 20,th Century Fox asked Struzan to create a poster for a theatrical re-release of George Lucas’ “Star Wars.”
This is not the main poster for the film, but rather what has come to be known as the “circus” poster, with a great font and Luke and Leia centered (she fires a blaster), with Obi-Wan off to the side. The poster’s special features were a necessity when Struzan and Weitzner discovered there wasn’t enough room for the film’s title or credits.
Over the next decades, Struzan would deliver some of the biggest blockbusters of all time, including “The Muppet Movie,” “ET the Extra-Terrestrial,” “Coming to America,” “First Blood,” “An American Tail,” “The Goonies” and many more. He also designed the original logo for Industrial Light & Magic, the visual effects company founded by George Lucas for the original “Star Wars” film, featuring a magician in a top hat. And although he continued to work on projects into the 1990s and beyond, he officially retired in 2008, after completing the poster for Steven Spielberg’s “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.”
Struzan returned occasionally for one-offs or reissues, creating, for example, an alternate poster for “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” in 2015, but remained largely retired.
Earlier this year, his wife revealed that he had been living with Alzheimer’s disease for an undetermined amount of time. This meant he could no longer paint or sign his posters for fans.
Struzan’s work not only captured the spirit of the films he helped advertise, but also created a spirit and mystique of their own. You knew that when you saw a Drew Struzan poster, every brushstroke seemed purposeful and alive. As illustrations began to fade in popularity, replaced by clunky digital models or collages depicting giant heads of stars, Struzan’s pieces exuded a warmth and texture that was extremely timeless. They were magical, through and through, no matter what film he was working on. And they still remain today, as evocative and majestic as ever. He was a singular talent who will be greatly missed.
