After taking a hair and makeup course, makeup artists that work in film often play a vital role in the film’s production. It is their job, after all, to ensure that the stars look their absolute best and to make the fictional characters seen in these films look and feel as real as possible.

Oddly, however, it would take over 50 years from the creation of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences before the complex artistry of this unsung industry would receive the credit it deserved.

The turning point was the 1980 film The Elephant Man, directed by David Lynch and about Joseph Merrick, a Victorian man who was believed to have Proteus syndrome which gave him a distinct look.

To replicate this, actor John Hurt would sit whilst a team of makeup artists supervised by Christopher Tucker would spend up to eight hours applying the elaborate makeup and prosthetic effects designed from the casts of his body.

The film was exceptionally well received and would be nominated for eight Academy Awards in 1981, although would not win a single one in a year dominated by Raging Bull and Ordinary People.

The biggest outcry for industry figures was that the incredible work of the makeup team that had made The Elephant Man possible would not be honoured, since at the time makeup artists could only receive a Special Achievement Award.

The award, given to William Tuttle for his work on 7 Faces of Dr Lao in 1964 and to John Chambers due to his work on Planet Of The Apes in 1968, was not awarded to The Elephant Man, and the film would not receive a single Academy Award.

However, the outcry was enough for the Academy to create a whole new category for the following year’s awards, where An American Werewolf in London’s makeup by Rick Baker defeated Stan Winston’s work on Heartbeeps.