CLIFF CULLEY |
Biography |
Cliff Culley, was one of the backroom boys at Rank in Pinewood Studios on all of those shows from the Harryhausens and Carry On's to the Norman Wisdom cheapies and whatever else was being done at Pinewood. He started at Pinewood special effects department at 1946, under Bill Warrington as head of departement. At that time it was Les Bowie chief of matte painting, and latter on, when he left, Albert Whitlock worked from 1949 to 1953 at Pinewood matte department. Culley became a matte painting specialist and worked on loads of films over the years, and became head of Pinewood's matte painting department in the mid-late 1960s. He also has provided many optical gags on films too, for example, the reflection of thug in the eye of the beautiful girl from the opening of Goldfinger.
Cliff Culley is best known for supervising the matte art on films such as the Brocolli's You Only Live Twice and On Her Majesty's Secret Service and Chitty Citty Bang Bang, the latter film being one of his sole supervisory screen credits next to One of Our Dinosaurs is Missing and Spaceman in King Arthur's Court for Disney, and Hellraiser 2. During the 60´s Culley took Charles Stoneham as matte painter assitant at Pinewood matte department
Since leaving Rank in the mid 70s Cliff Culley opened his own firm, Westbury Design and Optical which provided overspill latent image comps and optical tricks on films such as "Hellraiser II", or "Sword of the valient" (1984). He got Leigh Took as matte assistent at 1978 for films as "Warlords of Atlantis" or "Clash of the Titans".
Cliff Culley retired at 1997 after working on the film Orphans (1997).
Filmography. |
Gallery. |
Cliff Culley photos. |