The Brothers Hildebrandt – The creation of the original Star Wars Poster was just the tip of the iceberg.
NOTE: As with all Mr. Local History retrospectives, we often update the post when we learn stories and receive photos from our community. We will continue to expand this piece as information becomes available. Originally posted in 2020, we have a 2022 update below.
UPDATE: Mr. Local History learned that the world lost Greg Hildebrandt passed away on October 31, 2024 (age 85 years). May the 4th be with you in heaven Greg. Prayers to his family.
Greg and Tim Hildebrandt, better known to the illustration world as “The Brothers Hildebrandt,” began their careers in 1959. The Brothers have worked on documentary films and thousands of illustrations for textbooks, children’s books, calendars, book covers, posters, comic books, advertisements, movie posters, production design for films, collectables, and trading card games. They are often referred to as “fantasy artists.”
People don’t know that Tim Hildebrandt was a proud Gladstone resident for over 30 years. Let’s look at Tim and Greg, these iconic artist twin superheroes who created more modern artwork than most can even imagine.
Early Years in Detroit
Greg and Tim Hildebrandt were born five minutes apart, in that order, on Feb. 23, 1939, in Detroit, Mich. Greg said the duo first started drawing at 3, having been fascinated by Walt Disney’s Pinocchio.
The names Greg and Tim Hildebrandt are well known to fans of Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, The Secret of Nimh, The Trans-Siberian Orchestra, comics, pin-ups, and fantasy. However, long before their involvement with these, they were producing art and animation for the iconic Jam Handy Organization. Though only employed at the company for about 6 years, their time at the studio was a fantastic experience and one that had an important impact on their careers.
Through contacts they made at Jam Handy, they received a unique offer from TV personality Bishop Fulton J. Sheen to work on a series of documentaries on world poverty. The bishop was a highly respected, famous Catholic TV and Radio personality, and as Greg and Tim felt this was their calling, they took the job in a heartbeat. His production company was located in New York City, thus requiring them to move there from Detroit. Their 1963 departure was sad to many at the Jam Handy Organization, especially to Frank Goldman, as they saw Greg and Tim hopefully running the animation department in the coming years. Off to the shine of NYC they went.
Famous Star Wars Call
in 1975, Greg and Tim illustrated the first of a series of Lord of the Rings calendars for Ballantine Books. This series of paintings launched the two men into international fame, with over a million calendars sold, and the name The Brothers Hildebrandt® was born!
Greg and Tim were big Disney fans, particularly of Sleeping Beauty and Eyvind Earle. The “Twins,” as they were referred to seemed to work in a parallel level of awareness like a right and left hand. The Animation Department Head, Bob Kennedy would schedule them on opposite shifts when they had a short deadline on productions since they could duplicate each other’s work. But doing this the work was completed in half the time that one person would take accordingly.
Ray Pointer – Jam Handy Organization
On about May 16, 1977, Greg and Tim received a phone call asking if they could create a movie poster that a director (George Lucas) needed for “some kind of science fiction movie.” The original Star Wars movie (Episode IV—A New Hope) was to be released in just nine days on Wednesday, May 25, 1977.
“The movie was being released in just 9 days. Who is the guy with the black thing on his head?” the brothers inquired.“Oh, it’s a mask or something,” the team that liaised for Lucas replied.
Tim Hildebrandt in a 1987 Bernardsville News interview.
Greg and Tim Hildebrandt disappeared to their studio for 36 hours and emerged with their creation. They showed it a day later, and they loved it.
As they say, the rest is history.
I should have talked more about Star Wars — the fuller story of the movie poster is wild, including my dad. mom, and I going to the East Coast premier. When you have the time, here’s the hour long video about it. Click Here
Charles Hildebrandt on the Star Wars Movie Poster
Tim Leaves Jersey City for Gladstone
It’s just a train away, historic, and affordable.
In 1970, seven years BEFORE the infamous Star Wars call, Tim Hildebrandt decided, like many others, that Jersey City didn’t give him what they wanted to raise a family. Like many in the NYC suburbs, you want to stay connected to New York via train but be far enough away. Gladstone is as far as you can get on the Peapack Gladstone branch, so Gladstone was. They purchased a modest three-story Victorian house on Jackson Avenue in Gladstone, New Jersey.
“The calendar was Tim Hildebrandt’s idea”, his brother remembered. “I wanted to pursue gallery art at that point, but Tim was pushing and pushing” on the J.R.R. Tolkien trilogy, “and then I read it and said OK.” The calendar project was their studio’s second best known, after their poster for the 1977 movie “Star Wars.”
It was a wacky old Victorian with turrets and cupolas. I think it’s still standing. Definitely not a mansion. It was crammed with paintings and knick-knacks back in the day. And yes, they filmed it around the house. Mrs. H. must have been very patient.
John Waldron – Charles’ close friend and college roommate.
During that separation, Tim Hildebrandt illustrated calendars and painted covers for sci-fi fantasy magazines, including Amazing Stories, the Time of Transference, The Byworlder, and cards for the Clue game whose characters were based on Gladstone residents he knew.
The “Separation” and Tim’s Movie
For 12 years, starting in 1981, the two brothers separated and embarked on their own artistic journeys. Tim tried out filmmaking, and Greg worked on various projects.
Tim continued working on several projects after the “separation.” In 1982, Tim and his wife Rita Hildebrandt took the movie plunge and decided to make the sci-fi horror film The Deadly Spawn filmed in their Gladstone, New Jersey home. It starred their son Charles, a Bernards High student, over in Bernardsville. Tim, 46, then stated after the project, “I’d much rather be making a film than a painting.”
It’s mankind versus the ultimate eating machine! In the 1983 horror film The Deadly Spawn (also known as Return of the Aliens), a three-headed alien creature with some razor-harp teeth arrives on planet Earth for just one reason: to eat. Mixed with a metal soundtrack and similar references to the movie Alien, the film was an 80’s local cult classic.
The Deadly Spawn Plot:
A meteorite crashes to earth during a torrential thunderstorm, bringing with it a slimy, three-headed alien beast that craves human meat and gives birth to hundreds of eel-like spawn. The monster takes up residence in the basement of a family home, devouring the parents without anyone else’s knowledge. The oldest son Pete (Michael Robert Coleman) is a science major in college, and his younger brother Charles (Charles George Hildebrandt- Tim’s son) is a horror movie fanatic who loves to dress up like his favorite monsters and scare his visiting aunt and uncle. When an electrician arrives to check the fuse box, Charles follows him into the basement in costume for a little fun, but instead discovers the hideous alien and what’s left of his mother’s corpse. Meanwhile, two of Pete’s friends come over for a study session, bringing along the remains of a dead alien spawn that they found on the side of the road. Baffled, they dissect it in an effort to establish its origin, but it seems to defy everything they’ve ever been taught in class. Their intellectual curiosity is abandoned when they find Pete’s uncle being eaten by a swarm of alien spawn, and from there on it’s a fight for survival against the monster.
Source: Rotten Tomatoes
The website Cool Ass Cinema wrote that the film is “not out to win any awards; it’s simply there to entertain and in the most energetically gruesome fashion possible.”
Charles, The Teen Actor, Grows Up
The Mr. Local History Project caught up with Charles Hildebrant, one of the actors who was a sensation then and quite the celebrity at Bernards High School in 1983.
I wish I were mindful of exactly what I was doing back then. Here I am in Times Square at the premier of this movie and it was all sureal to me. Then when I went to the movie theater in Basking Ridge they actually clapped for me. Pretty cool for a high school kid.
Charles Hildebrandt about growing up unaware of how awesome his experience really was.
During the interview, which you can watch on the MLH YouTube Channel, we covered many topics, from low-budget sci-fi classics to advanced special effects to neighborly indifference to living in the area (oh, that’s just Tim doing his thing). We spent almost an hour discussing growing up in the area.
Charles was just like most other kids. He got on the Gladstone train every morning and took it three stops down to the Bernardsville station, where he went to school at Bernards High. A 1985 graduate, he decided to attend Rutgers and then, finally, law school. He’s a film and entertainment lawyer living with his family in the DC metro area.
I still stay in touch with my best friend John who I’ve known since I was six. We were roommates in college and while we live in different places, we still joke about our time in the area.
Charles Hildebrant
Before ending, I asked if he had a favorite out of all the work his father did. Well, yes, he did.
Charles also laughed when I asked how the $100,000 budget was spent on his family film. He quickly replied, “If we had $100,000 to do this film, it would have looked like Alien. Sorry to disappoint, but it was more like $30,000. And most of that was production costs for renting equipment.”
1993 Reunion
After twelve years apart, the twins decided it was time to get back together. Tim lived in Gladstone, and brother Greg lived in Hopatcong.
The dozen-year separation (1981-1993) I had from my brother was a twin thing, mostly driven by the overriding need to find out if we can survive on our own. When we reunited in 1993, meeting on the Green in Morristown. “It was a beautiful spring day. We hugged and bawled like idiots.”
Greg Hildebrandt about his brother Tim
Upon reuniting, they teamed up to produce Marvel posters, pre-production art for the Batman films, and 159 Marvel Masterpiece Trading Cards, which they produced in only six months.
In 2004, Tim and his family moved from Gladstone, New Jersey, to San Antonio, Texas. Tim passed away two years later on June 11, 2006, from complications of diabetes. He was visiting John Dods in New Jersey when he died in 2006, which is why there was a memorial service in New Jersey. He is greatly missed by everyone who knew him, especially his brother.
He’s in my hand, eyes, mind, art, soul. He always has been from birth, and he still is.”
Greg Hildebrandt said of his brother
A memorial service was held at St. Brigid Church in Peapack on Saturday, June 17, 2006. He left behind his wife, Rita, son Charles, nieces Mary, Laura, Elizabeth, and nephew Gregory. His sister, Mary Hildebrandt, and her husband, David Boller, lived in Bernardsville at the time.
Greg’s Life After Tim
Since Tim’s death, Greg has been the exclusive artist for several artistic endeavors, including the Trans-Siberian Orchestra. He creates all the art for their tours and merchandise. This is very special to Greg as he loves their music and is very close to Paul O’Neill, the creator of the Trans-Siberian Orchestra.
Spiderwebart Gallery, Greg Hildebrandt’s gallery, is hailed as an otherworldly artist whose work fostered the dreams and fantasies of millions of fans, young and old.
“If you don’t know Greg’s work, go spend a couple of minutes drooling over spiderwebart.com to get an idea of what a master this guy is. He has a storied career, he’s created some of the most visually eye-catching work out there, and he’s a nice guy on top of it all.
Show Promoter – Baltimore
Star Wars Calls Again – Marvel Too
In 2015, Greg had the opportunity to return to Star Wars after 20 years for Marvel Comics. He painted three new pieces for them for Star Wars comic covers. The Star Wars Compendium is a series of magazines published by Paradise Press, collecting the articles originally printed in their Star Wars Official Poster Monthly and The Empire Strikes Back Official Poster Monthly, but excluding the posters included in those series.
He has since also painted Deadpool, Old Man Logan, Secret Wars, Guardians of the Galaxy, and Captain America comic covers for them, and cannot wait to do more!
The American Beauties
The American Beauties collection has unique subsets. There are good girls, bad girls, show-girls, girls with boats and planes, girls with guns and cars. Each of these paintings has a story to tell.
What I had was my love of art and an overwhelming appreciation of the beauty of women. But I didn’t want anyone looking at my art like I was copying these great artists. I want people to see my vision of pin-up art.
1999 – Greg about his transformation from comics to pin up art.
Harley Quinn & The Dark Side
2016 – Greg has also started a new series titled “The Dark Side.” In this series, he paints his favorite characters in extremely large sizes. The series’ focus has been exploring the darker side of characters, starting first with characters known for their darkness as part of their story. The first two paintings in the series are of The Joker and Harley Quinn.
DC has expressed great interest in using Harley Quinn as a cover. Naturally, the third painting is of Batman. Greg couldn’t paint Joker and Harley without painting Batman, too!
So, where are we in 2022?
- Greg is 83 and lives and works at his Spiderwebart Gallery: 5 Waterloo Rd, Hopatcong, NJ 07843
- Tim’s son Charles is now 55 and lives in DC.
- Tim’s wife Rita lives in San Antonio, Texas.
- We lost Tim in 2006.
- Gladstone Parks and Recreation will be honoring the film “The Deadly Spawn” in the Summer of 2022
The house where Tim filmed the Deadly Spawn is now owned by Susanne Wash and her family, who moved in last year. For over a year, she has spent tremendous time and effort restoring the house that served as a movie set for the Hildebrandts.
Recently, Greg was honored by the Air Force at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware. They requested a license to put one of Greg’s pinup paintings, “Keep em Flying,” on the nose of a transport plane. Greg, of course, said yes. This is a dream come true for him.
Additional Information:
- World Fantasy Award -Tim Hildebrandt received the award for Best Artist at the 1992 World Science Fiction Convention.
- Together, the brothers were awarded the Gold Medal by the Society of Illustrators.
- Brothers Hildebrandt Biography
- Greg Hildebrandt Biography
- Greg was a teacher at the Kubert School of Cartoon and Graphic Art in Dover, New Jersey
- Brothers Hildebrandt website
- Tim Hildebrandt official website
- The Tolkien Years of the Brothers Hildebrandt
- Prince Valiant drawn by Hal Foster was Tim Hildebrandt’s favorite comic strip (said in a 1987 interview).
- The Best 41 images of Tim and Greg
- Tim received the 1991 Mensa Select Winner for the game Clue: Clue: The Great Museum Caper (1991)
- That cute 14-year-old kid in the Deadly Spawn film, Charles Hildebrandt, will be 53 in 2020. He lives in the Washington, D.C./Metro area.
- The Deadly Spawn (YouTube) 1:18hr Full Film is here (1983)
- American Beauties collection by Greg Hildebrandt
- Greg Hildebrandt on Facebook
- Tim Hildebrand on Facebook
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