Portrait of Douglas Trumbull

Birthday profile

Douglas Trumbull

Douglas Trumbull, American director, producer, and special effects artist (died 2022)

Born
April 8, 1942
Died
February 7, 2022
Zodiac sign
Aries
Birth year
1942

About Douglas Trumbull

Douglas Hunt Trumbull was an American film director and visual effects supervisor, who pioneered innovative methods in special effects. He created scenes for 2001: A Space Odyssey, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Blade Runner and The Tree of Life, and directed the movies Silent Running and Brainstorm. Douglas Hunt Trumbull (; April 8, 1942 – February 7, 2022) was an American film director and visual effects supervisor, who pioneered innovative methods in special effects. Trumbull's first task was to create the dozens of animations seen in the data display screens in the Aries moon shuttle and the Discovery. Trumbull initially created the shots using a number of Rube Goldberg-like contraptions he built with gears and motors ordered from a scientific equipment supply house.

Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.

Douglas Trumbull timeline

  1. Douglas Hunt Trumbull (; April 8, 1942 – February 7, 2022) was an American film director and visual effects supervisor, who pioneered innovative methods in special effects.
  2. He created scenes for 2001: A Space Odyssey, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Blade Runner and The Tree of Life, and directed the movies Silent Running and Brainstorm.

The world when Douglas Trumbull was born

Douglas Trumbull was born in 1942. The year snapshot below places that birthday in its cultural and historical setting: the music and films people were following, the headlines shaping public life, and the everyday prices families encountered.

Culture in 1942

  • #1 song"White Christmas" – Bing Crosby
  • Top movieCasablanca
  • Best-selling bookThe Song of Bernadette – Franz Werfel

Headlines and milestones

  • Major sports momentFirst Negro League World Series
  • Top headlineBattle of Midway becomes turning point of WWII in the Pacific
  • Technology milestoneEnrico Fermi achieves first nuclear chain reaction
  • Defining fadRationing and war bonds
  • Notable inventionNapalm
  • World population2.35 billion

United States snapshot

  • U.S. leaderFranklin D. Roosevelt
  • Sports championSt. Louis Cardinals (World Series)
  • U.S. population134.9M

1942 versus 2026

These figures put everyday life in Douglas Trumbull's birth year beside the site's latest United States snapshot.

Measure19422026
Gas$0.20$3.45/gal
Average home$5,600$435,000
Average income$3,800$67,500
Minimum wage$0.30$7.25/hr (federal)
Movie ticket$0.27$11.95
Postage stamp$0.03$0.73
Population134.9M341 million

Sources and editorial standards

This profile combines a biographical source with structured birthday and historical context. Sources recorded for this profile: Wikipedia, Library of Congress, Wikidata. See our editorial policy for sourcing, corrections, and review standards.

Read the source biography on Wikipedia. Wikipedia text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.