On July 13, 2020, Grant Imahara died of a brain aneurysm at age 49. Imahara was best known for being part of the Build Team on the hit Discovery Channel show "MythBusters," which fulfilled his childhood dream of wanting to create James Bond-style gadgets. The special effects guru previously worked for Lucasfilm's Industrial Light and Magic and THX Labs, which led to him operating R2-D2 in the "Star Wars" prequels. Imahara is survived by his fiancée Jennifer Newman, to whom he was engaged to in 2016. Here are the details of the life and tragic death of "MythBusters" star Grant Imahara.
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00:00Grant Imahara, part of the Discovery Channel's Mythbusters build team for 10 years, once
00:05told Machine Design,
00:06"...When I was a kid, I never wanted to be James Bond.
00:09I wanted to be Q, because he was the guy who made all the gadgets."
00:13Throughout his career, he did exactly that, a career which ended with his death on Monday,
00:17July 13th of a brain aneurysm.
00:20He was just 49 years old.
00:22Imahara was more than just a TV host.
00:24Born in 1970 in Los Angeles, Imahara graduated with a degree in electrical engineering from
00:29the University of Southern California, as Rolling Stone reports.
00:33For a time, he had considered switching majors to screenwriting, but fortunately for all
00:37of us, he kept to that childhood career path, becoming that Q figure for big-budget films
00:42across the spectrum of science fiction and fantasy.
00:45His electrical engineering expertise expanded to robotics, serving him and the entertainment
00:49industry very well.
00:50"...I started out playing with Lego, and so the idea of building things was ingrained.
00:56It was something that I'd love to do."
00:59As The Hollywood Reporter tells us, he first landed a job with Industrial Light & Magic
01:03and THX Labs, the Lucasfilms special effects companies founded by George Lucas in 1975.
01:09There, he worked as an animatronics engineer and model maker.
01:12Besides designing light displays for R2-D2, he operated the droid in the Star Wars prequels.
01:18His engineering expertise, combined with a love of entertainment and storytelling, also
01:22shows up in his work on such films as The Lost World Jurassic Park, Terminator 3 Rise
01:27of the Machines, and the sequels to The Matrix, among others.
01:31He struck his career arc early, telling Machine Design in 2008,
01:35"...I like the challenge of designing and building things, figuring out how something
01:39works and how to make it better or apply it in a different way.
01:42I guess you could say that engineering came naturally."
01:45Imahara started stepping in front of the camera in 2000, when he competed on Comedy Central's
01:50BattleBots.
01:51His middleweight entry in the competition, which he built himself, was christened Dead
01:55Blow.
01:56In the first season, Dead Blow was the runner-up in its category, and was the first ranked
02:00robot in the series' third season.
02:02Both Adam Savage and Jamie Heinemann worked on BattleBots as well.
02:05Proving that show business is a small world after all, history took a turn for the delightful
02:09when Imahara joined MythBusters, becoming part of the Build team in 2005.
02:14The program set out to do exactly what its title suggested, take on legends, myths, and
02:19Hollywood set pieces to see which fanciful ideas might actually work in real life.
02:25As a member of the Build team, Imahara worked with Cary Byron and Tony Belleci.
02:29Belleci had been one of his colleagues at ILM and is credited with recruiting Imahara
02:33for the show.
02:34Imahara did more than lend technical experience and practical expertise to the episodes.
02:39Imahara brought with him a remarkable fearlessness as well, participating in some of the experiments.
02:44If a myth test was judged too dangerous for actual humans, Imahara's team designed machines
02:49that would take the place of a person.
02:51Besides his MythBusters work, Imahara worked behind the scenes to create a skeleton robot
02:55sidekick for Craig Ferguson's late-night talk show, a creature dubbed Jeff Peterson.
03:01In front of the cameras, he portrayed Hikaru Sulu in the fan-made web series Star Trek
03:06Continues.
03:07In 2014, the Build team was removed from the MythBusters equation, but two years later,
03:12the three experts reunited for a Netflix series, The White Rabbit Project.
03:16In that program, Imahara and his colleagues investigated not only inventions, but also
03:20crime history, a kind of how-did-they-do-that approach.
03:24Imahara's co-workers issued statements of appreciation for his presence in their lives.
03:28Adam Savage of MythBusters tweeted,
03:30"'Grant was a truly brilliant engineer, artist and performer, but also just such a generous,
03:36easygoing and gentle person.
03:38Working with Grant was so much fun.
03:40I'll miss my friend.'"
03:42The Discovery Channel said in a statement,
03:44"'Grant was part of the MythBusters team for 10 years where his dedication to his craft
03:49and his ability to bust myths with the best of them brought tech to life for his fans.'
03:54He became engaged to costume designer Jennifer Newman in 2016, who wrote,
03:59"'He was so generous and kind, so endlessly sweet and so loved by his incredible friends.
04:04I feel so lucky to have known him, to have loved and been loved by him.'"