An iconic artist with over 1,000 illustrations – including movie posters for the movies “Jaws” and “The Empire Strikes Back” – Roger Karl Kastel has died at age 92 in Worcester County, Massachusetts, according to his website.
His wife, Grace Kastel, told the Hollywood Reporter that he died of kidney and heart failure at a hospice facility.
According to Kastel’s website, “Roger got his first paying art job at the age of 15 doing industrial cartoons. He sold his first illustration in the early 1960s and illustrated paperback book covers and movie posters over the next forty years.”
“Roger’s painting of Jaws is included in the books, The Illustrator in American (sic) and 200 Years of American Illustration,” the website reads. “While Jaws and The Empire Strikes Back may be the most widely recognized of his work, Roger received multiple awards for various other illustrations and fine art.”
“Jaws” was a 1975 blockbuster thriller about a great white shark terrorizing a beach community. The film went on to be nominated for a best picture Oscar, and won three other Academy Awards. It was directed by Steven Spielberg and was based on the bestselling 1974 novel by Peter Benchley.
Kastel also provided the artwork for the paperback edition of the novel.
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