About John.
Academy Award and Emmy Award Winning Makeup Artist. Film & Television.
From Special Effects Makeup to Beauty (and everything in between), John Caglione Jr.'s work has been featured on movie & television screens throughout his 40 plus year career. His makeup career in the Television/ Film Industry began to take flight at the age of 18.
When John graduated High School in 1976, his Mentor (Makeup Maestro) Dick Smith recommended John to NBC-TV's Makeup Department. Over the next six years there, John worked on Soap Operas, News Broadcasts, Variety Shows and "Saturday Night Live" (with the Original Cast); putting the tops on the Coneheads and the soul patches on The Blues Brothers. From there John moved from Television to Film work in 1980 as Key Makeup Designer on "Quest For Fire" which earned an Academy Award for Best Makeup.
Through the recommendation of Production Designer Richard Sylbert (The Cotton Club- of which John was Prosthetic Designer), John was awarded the prosthetic department head duties by Warren Beatty for the film "Dick Tracy". John considers "Dick Tracy" as a cornerstone film job of his career, winning the Academy Award, British Academy Award and Science Fiction Film Award for Best Makeup in 1990. This was also the film where John met legendary actor Al Pacino and a life long working relationship began.
​In 2004, John won the Emmy Award for Best Makeup - for his work on Al Pacino in "Angels in America". In 2009, John earned an Emmy nomination for his work on Pacino in the HBO Movie "You Don't Know Jack". Pacino portrayed Dr Jack Kavorkian.
John's most recent work with Pacino are featured in HBO's "Paterno", the hit Amazon show "Hunters" and in Martin Scorcese's "The Irishman".
John has been makeup department head on a variety of films that include "The Hurricane", "Donnie Brasco", "Heat", "The Insider" and "Sicario: Day of the Soldado" - to name a few.
In 2009, John earned an Academy Award nomination for his work in "The Dark Knight", transforming Heath Ledger into The Joker.
In 2021, John was Department Head Makeup and Department Head SFX Makeup for the STARZ TV series, "Hightown". Season Two.
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At this point in his career, John believes "The better you get, the harder you work". He enjoys every facet of makeup design: From applying eyeliner and lashes on many of Hollywood's Leading Ladies....to sculpting, molding and applying prosthetics, John truly does it all.
