The China Mail - 'E.T' and 'Star Wars' poster illustrator Drew Struzan dies aged 78

Struzan was a favourite of directors Steven Spielberg and George Lucas, and his drawing style came to symbolise the posters of Hollywood's late 1970s and 1980s heyday -- and decorated teenagers' bedrooms around the world.

His death following years of struggle with Alzheimer's was announced on Tuesday on his Instagram page with a post by his manager saying that Struzan had "moved on from this world as of ... October 13th".

"His creativity, through a single illustrated image, opened up a world full of life in vivid color... even at a glance," Lucas wrote in a statement on his company's website.

"I was lucky to have worked with him time and time again."

Spielberg said that Struzan "made event art" and "nobody drew like Drew."

"His posters made many of our movies into destinations... and the memory of those movies and the age we were when we saw them always comes flashing back just by glancing at his iconic photorealistic imagery," Variety quoted the director as saying.

Mexican director Guillermo del Toro wrote on the Bluesky social media platform that "the world lost a genial man, a genius communicator and a supreme artist. I lost a friend -- beloved Drew."

Struzan started out doing artwork for bands in the 1970s such as the Bee Gees and Black Sabbath before moving on to the movie business, where his hand-drawn film posters set the standard for decades.

The list of more than 150 films for which he designed the poster includes "Blade Runner", "Back to the Future", "Planet of the Apes" and "The Muppet Movie", as well as "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone".

G.Fung--ThChM