Tom Howard (special effects)
Visual Effects Artist
Tom Howard (27 March 1910 – 30 August 1985) was a British special effects artist who won two Academy Awards. He had 82 films from 1940 to 1974.
Oscar History
Both of these were for Best Special Effects.
19th Academy Awards-Blithe Spirit. Won.
31st Academy Awards-tom thumb. Won.
Biography
Tom Howard (born in Kent on 27 March 1910) was an esteemed British special effects artist who gained especial prestige for his work in the 1940s – 1960s, in what is considered the golden age of Hollywood filmmaking. Initially starting out as a theatre-projectionist – the cinema equivalent of a water boy – Howard would transition to Denham Studios, working under the tutelage of Alexandra Korda, a Hungarian film director who would have a profound impact on the evolution of Howard's career. Howard would become a key player in the production of many of Korda's films, including the perennial classic Lawrence of Arabia, dreaming up (alongside Lawrence Butler) the earliest innovations of impressive photographic effects that would eventually net him an Oscar for his work in David Lean's Blithe Spirit (1945).
“Tom Howard (special effects)” enters the record as visual Effects Artist. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Howard, special and effects can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 30, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q16011268. VIAF identifies the subject as 293001189. The Library of Congress control number is no2006124213. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1910, 1985, 1940 and 1974.
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This entry incorporates text from “Tom Howard (special effects)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.