Legendary visual effects artist Douglas Trumbull, who is known for crafting the VFX of landmark films like 2001: A Space Odyssey, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and Blade Runner, passed away on Monday at the age of 79.

According to reports, Trumbull passed away due to mesothelioma-related complications. His daughter Amy wrote on Facebook that he had cancer, a brain tumor, and a stroke. She wrote, "My sister Andromeda and I got to see him on Saturday and tell him that we love him and we got to tell him to enjoy and embrace his journey into the Great Beyond."

Douglas was born in Los Angeles. His father, Don Trumbull, was a mechanical engineer and visual effects artist, who worked on films ranging like The Wizard of Oz and Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope. His mother, Marcia Hunt, was an artist as well.

Trumbull started off as an illustrator and airbrush artist at Graphic Films in Los Angeles, which created a documentary To the Moon and Beyond. Stanley Kubrick was mightily impressed by their work and hired Graphic Films director Con Pederson. Trumbull, who got Kubrick's number from Pederson, made a cold call to Kubrick which resulted in his hiring to work on 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Initially, he was given a relatively minor task of creating the animated displays seen on the computer screens throughout the ship in the film. However, his responsibilities saw an evolution through the course of the film's production as he became one of the four visual effects supervisors on the movie.