Carlo Rambaldi Gets a Posthumous Walk of Fame Star — and Del Toro's Blessing

Guillermo del Toro calls the late Carlo Rambaldi "a worldwide maestro of magic" — and he says it in a video message recorded for a very specific occasion: the Italian special effects designer is receiving a posthumous star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on Thursday.

Rambaldi died in 2012 at age 86. He left behind three Academy Awards for special effects, earned for "King Kong" (1976), "Alien" (1979) and "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial" (1983). The last of those made him immortal in movie history: he designed the title character in Steven Spielberg's film.

Thursday's ceremony takes place at 1611 Vine Street in Hollywood. Cinecittà studios president Antonio Saccone attends, along with several members of Rambaldi's family and Matt Winston — son of Stan Winston, the Oscar-winning effects master behind the dinosaurs of "Jurassic Park."

Who was Carlo Rambaldi?

The résumé reads like a map of postwar cinema. Rambaldi worked with Spielberg twice before and on "E.T." — the earlier collaboration being "Close Encounters of the Third Kind." He built effects for David Lynch's cult classic "Dune." His directors also included Federico Fellini, Luchino Visconti, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Marco Ferreri, Mario Bava, Dario Argento, Lucio Fulci, John Huston, Ridley Scott and Oliver Stone.

The path started far from Hollywood. Rambaldi was born in Vigarano Mainarda, a village outside Ferrara in Emilia-Romagna, northern Italy. He was the son of a bicycle mechanic. He graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Bologna in 1951 and wanted to be an artist.

Cinema found him anyway. In 1956, someone asked him to create a dragon for a low-budget science fiction movie. That single creature job pulled him into the industry, and he never left.

What does del Toro's tribute actually say?

The two men never collaborated — Rambaldi died a decade ago — but they share an obsession. Del Toro has built his career on creatures made through animatronics (mechanical puppets performed live on set rather than added digitally), the same artisanal craft Rambaldi perfected.

"Carlo Rambaldi changed the world of special effects, makeup and puppetry," del Toro says in the video message, shared exclusively with Variety. "He brought a know-how and a finesse and a great sense of character and design that can only be described as being the heir of the old world craftsmanship and beauty that comes with a country with a great theatrical tradition and a great artistic tradition."

Del Toro goes further, tying Rambaldi directly to the present:

"Without him, it's absolutely impossible to imagine the daring, beautiful work that is being done now and in the last few decades. He is not only a great Italian effect master, but a worldwide maestro of magic."

What does this change for the craft?

In practical terms, a Walk of Fame star doesn't restore anything — Rambaldi's reputation never needed repair. What it does is institutionalize it. Effects designers rarely get monuments on Vine Street; actors and record executives do.

So the honor works as a public argument: that the hands and engineering behind E.T.'s face deserve the same sidewalk real estate as the stars who appeared in front of the camera. With del Toro — arguably the most prominent living advocate for practical creature work — supplying the eulogy, that argument now carries a very loud voice.