Terribly sad news arrived today as MythBusters star and former ILM team member Grant Imahara has passed away aged just 49.
After graduating with a degree in electrical engineering from the University of Southern California. Grant was soon working on some movie classics as a member of ILM.
He later worked as an animatronics engineer and model maker for Industrial Light & Magic, a designer of movie special effects that was founded by George Lucas in 1975. In a brief biography on the movie site IMDB, Mr. Imahara is described as an “electronics wizard” who worked “behind the scenes of many top Hollywood films for years.”
Mr. Imahara operated R2-D2 in the “Star Wars” prequels. He also worked on “Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines,” Steven Spielberg’s “The Lost World: Jurassic Park” and the “Matrix” sequels, among other films, and developed a custom circuit for the Energizer Bunny’s arms and ears.
He also built a machine that became a champion on “BattleBots,” a robot fighting show that ran on Comedy Central from 2000 to 2002. A year after the show ended, he published a book, “Kickin’ Bot: An Illustrated Guide to Building Combat Robots.”
Mr. Imahara worked on “MythBusters” from 2005 to 2014, initially as a member of its “build team.”
To Grants family and his many friends and fans, we pass on our condolences.
