Beau Wilson has powdered the face of Liz Taylor and sullied the countenance of John Wayne.
For 50 years, the smooth-talking man has brought to life the imaginings of some of America's storied producers in Hollywood's biggest films and television series.
Wilson became a part of Union County's history, too, when he married Morganfield native Dottie Floyd in 1957.
Wilson and his wife have been staying with her sister and brother-in-law - Cecilia and Payton Heady - since Hurricane Rita knocked out electricity to their Texas home.
Wilson had the good fortune to be born into one of Hollywood's most famous make-up families - the Westmores. Wilson said they were the first makeup artists and hairstylists in the movie industry. As family lore goes, his uncle got drunk one night and sold a branch of the family business for $100. That part of the company eventually became Max Factor. They already had a strong reputation established in Hollywood, and Wilson, a gifted make-up artist in his own right, fell right into the family business.
The first movie he "worked on", as he calls it, was "The Creature from the Black Lagoon." He considers that his first because it was the first film where he served as make-up director. That began a long and storied career in the film industry, with Wilson leaving his brush strokes on such American classics as "The Ten Commandments", xxx and xxx.
"I did a lot of films, some of which I've been asked, did you know at the time it would be a one-of-a-kind," he said. "I always say no, you don't know it'll end up being big. You're handed a script, you read it, you meet with the producers and then with the stars and find out what their attitude is about a character and you go with it."
Wilson was the makeup director on such film classics as West Side Story, Mutiny on the Bounty, Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?, Sparticus, Psycho and The Birds. He has stories he could tell you about everyone from George Clooney and Billy Bob Thornton to Bing Crosby and Janet Lee. But name-dropping is not his style. The stars bring up more excitement in his family and friends than they do in him.
"Stars are regular people for the most part," he said. "They're no better or no worse than anyone else."
Maybe so, but they still hold America's fascination.
Wilson worked with Lucille Ball on the "I Love Lucy" show. At the time he met his wife, Dottie, he was a makeup artist on the Red Skelton Show. They were introduced by the secretary of Cecil B. DeMille, the classic Hollywood producer who helped found Paramount Films. Dottie had made her way to California via her job working on military bases. She worked at Camp Breckinridge, then went to a base in Alabama when it closed. Later she transferred to the Red Stone Arsenal in Santa Monica, California, rooming with DeMille's secretary there and eventually meeting Wilson.
They married in 1957 and lived in California until the earthquake of 1971.
"We lost our home in the California earthquake," he said. The experience terrified his wife and children, and Wilson said doctors advised him to move them out of the area for their psychological well-being. That's when the family moved to Dallas, Texas, where they remained until a few months ago. They recently purchased a lakeside home and acreage in a suburban Dallas community. He got out of the film makeup business for a while, serving as the International Director of Cosmetics and Training at Mary Kay Cosmetics headquarters.
