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On June 29th, 1920 Raymond Frederick Harryhausen was born to Martha L. and Frederick W. Harryhausen in Los Angeles, California.
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All through his childhood, Ray had an obsession with dinosaurs and anything that had to do with fantasy. His parents encouraged him to pursue his love for fantasy and make it into something bigger in his later years.
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On March 2nd, 1933 the movie King Kong was released for the first time; it was them when Ray Harryhausen was introduced to the wonders of stop motion and when he started creating his own films.
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At eighteen years old, Ray Harryhausen entered into "The Junior Museum Hobby Show" at the County Museum. Based on a painting he had seen earlier in his life, he made a stegosaurus diorama in which he won first prize with.
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At the age of eighteen years old, Ray started on a new project called "Evolution of the World", which was supposed to show the beginning of the planet to the end of the era of dinosaurs. Harryhausen made many models and began to experiment things he was going use in this film, but sadly the project was too abitious for him to finish therefore it was forgotton.
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In 1947, Ray was hired as an assistant animator for the full length film "Mighty Joe Young". Since there was alot of technical difficulties, Ray had been left to do a majority of the animation in that film. The movie won the Academy Award for best special Effects, which helped Harryhausen start his long and wonderful career.
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Long time friend of Ray named Ray Bradbury wrote a short story named "The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms" (later retitled "The Fog Horn") which was about "a dinosaur drawn to a lone lighthouse by its foghorn". The story was sold to The Saturday Evening Post but since Harryhausen's film was so similar to the story, the film studio purchased the story so there would not be any legal issues.
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Ray Harryhausen and Diana Livingstone Bruce were married in 1963, in which their marriage lasted untill the passing of Ray on May 7th, 2013. Not long after the two were wed, they had a daughter named Vanessa. In the picture to the left , there is Ray Harryhausen with his wife Diana.
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In the movie Clash of the Titans, Ray did all of the stop motion visual effects. He hired model animators Jim Danforth and Steve Archer to assist him with the major animation parts. Harryhausen was nominated for a Saturn Award for Best Special Effects.
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In 2003, Ray Harryhausen was given an award for the Science Fiction Hall of Fame.
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Ray Harryhausen was given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on June 10th, 2003
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In 2006, Ray also got an award from the Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Awards,
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On May 7th, 2013 Raymond Frederick Harryhausen passed away at the age of 92 from natural causes. He will always be remembered as a good husband, father, and stop motion model animator; he will never be forgotton.
