THE FINAL FRONTIER
Once praised by Steven Spielberg as “the greatest miniature guy in the world”, model maker and designer Greg Jein helped create some of screen science fiction’s most immortal images. Born in Los Angeles, the Chinese American was a lifelong genre lover who collected comic books and pulp magazines and, as an early fan of Star Trek, built replica props for his own amusement. A professional break came in 1974 with raunchy SF spoof Flesh Gordon, along with a credit on John Carpenter’s debut Dark Star. TV movie The UFO Incident and an episode of Wonder Woman followed in 1975.