Matt Sweeney
Barbara Ford Grant
Matt Sweeney, the inventor and special effects artist who received an Oscar nomination for his work on Apollo 13 and three Technical Achievement Awards during his long career, has died. He was 75.
Sweeney died Monday at Providence Saint Joseph Medical Center in Burbank after a long battle with lung cancer, Dave Burle, who worked alongside Sweeney at his company for many years, told The Hollywood Reporter.
Sweeney also handled effects for films in the Lethal Weapon and Fast & Furious franchise and for 1941 (1979), 9 to 5 (1980), On Golden Pond (1981), Goonies (1985), The Color Purple (1985), The Lost Boys (1987), Big Top Pee-wee (1988), Arachnophobia (1990), Natural Born Killers (1994) and Galaxy Quest (1999), among many other movies.
Sweeney won his Technical Achievement Awards in 1987 for an Automatic Capsule Gun, which simulates bullet hits and is known as the “Sweeney Gun”; in 1998 for a Liquid Synthetic Air system, which mixes liquid nitrogen and liquid oxygen to produce safe, breathable fog; and in 2002 for the Mic Rig, an auto carrier and camera platform for shooting car chases.
He shared his Oscar nom for best visual effects on Ron Howard’s Apollo 13 (1995) with Robert Legato, Michael Kanfer and Leslie Ekker and his Technical Achievement honors with Lucinda “Lulu” Strub (his late wife), Bob Stoker and Mic Rodgers, respectively.
Born in April 1948 and raised in Studio City, Sweeney and Strub, who died in 2014, launched Matt Sweeney Special Effects Inc. in 1984 in Van Nuys to build those bullet-hit capsule guns.
The company expanded its line of products to include rigging equipment, stunt flying suits, pyrotechnic devices, glass breakers and devices for industrial use before merging with Roger George Special Effects at the start of this year.
Sweeney married fellow special effects artist Lucinda Foy about four years ago, and she survives him, as does his beloved dog, Xena.
Cary Phillips, director of R&D at ILM, worked with Sweeney on the Academy’s Scientific and Technical Awards Committee for the past several years and called him “an old school special effects guy without much experience with computer graphics.
“But he was always open to new things, always insightful and wise [and] a warm and generous craftsman full of great stories for the new folks.”
