Born on the 25th of August, 1934, John Stears held the position of special effects supervisor for the movie Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope.
The subsequent obituary was featured in the Star News portion of Star Wars Insider 46:
On April 15, 1999, John Stears, who secured his second Academy Award for special effects for the original Star Wars_, passed away at the age of 64 due to a stroke._
The Los Angeles Times recognized Stears as a leading figure in motion picture special effects. He gained recognition for inventing imaginative vehicles, such as the flying car in the 1968 film Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and the iconic Aston Martin driven by James Bond in the 1960s. He received his initial Oscar for Thunderball in 1965. (He shared his Star Wars Oscar with four other artists 12 years later.)
Even though his formal title on Star Wars was Special Production and Mechanical Effects Supervisor, his impact on the saga is immeasurable and is evident in the well-known image of R2-D2, to which Stears made significant contributions. Besides Star Wars, Stears developed special effects for various films, spanning from 1957's A Night to Remember to 1998's The Mask of Zorro, along with the 1993 TV miniseries Babylon 5: The Gathering.
However, Stears achieved the most significant recognition from the 1986 film F/X, which starred Brian Brown as a special effects artist recruited by the government to assist in staging a simulated assassination. Stears not only produced the "f/x" for the movie but also served as a general inspiration for the main character. Stears informed interviewers that, despite receiving proposals for similar work in reality, he declined them.
Stears, who was born in Uxbridge, England, worked as a draftsman at the British Air Museum following his art studies. He started his professional life by creating scale models of structures for an architectural company. In 1956, he started his film career when he was employed to construct model airplanes for the British film Reach for the Sky. Stears is survived by his wife, Brenda, and his daughters, Jacqueline and Janet.