Chambers trained as a commercial artist and started his career designing jewelry and carpets. Following service as a U.S. Army dental technician during World War II, Chambers found employment repairing faces and making prosthetic limbs for wounded veterans at the Veterans Affairs hospital in Hines, Illinois. He also trained under Ben Nye, then head of make-up at 20th Century Fox. In 1953, Chambers joined the NBC television network as a make-up artist for live shows. After working on his first film Around the World in Eighty Days in 1956, he then joined Universal Pictures. He attracted attention for his work on the film The List of Adrian Messenger, in which the audience had to guess which celebrities were concealed under Chambers' makeup; the actors' identities were not revealed until the end of the film. Chambers also worked on The Munsters and The Outer Limits TV series. in Planet of the Apes TV series Chambers became known worldwide for his work on the Planet of the Apes film franchise, which began with the eponymous 1968 film. During its production, he held training sessions at the 20th Century Fox studios to mentor the other 78 artists working on the film. He won an honorary Oscar at the 41st Academy Awards in 1969 for his work on film, long before the Academy Award for Best Makeup was established in 1981. He was the first motion picture makeup artist to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Chambers worked on the pilot episode of ' and created the pointed ears worn by Leonard Nimoy's Spock in the original ' television series. He also created Lee Marvin's prosthetic nose for his Academy Award-winning role in Cat Ballou, and a prosthetic chest for Richard Harris in A Man Called Horse, where he was hung on pins for a native American initiation ceremony. Some of his character creations, including Cornelius and Dr. Zaius from the Planet of the Apes series, are on display at The Science Fiction Museum in Seattle. Chambers served as president of the Society of Makeup Artists as well.
In the late 1970s, Chambers worked as a contractor for the CIA, creating "disguise kits" for CIA personnel stationed in other countries. Some of his work can be seen at the International Spy Museum in Washington D.C.. In 1980, Chambers was enlisted by CIA officer Tony Mendez to work on the Canadian Caper—the rescue of six American embassy personnel who hid at the residence of the Canadian ambassador during the Iran hostage crisis. Chambers set up a fake movie and production company as a cover story of a film crew planning to shoot a science fiction film, titled Argo, in Iran. To make the cover believable, Chambers used actor Michael Douglas's former office during the filming of The China Syndrome at Sunset Gower Studios. Chambers and Mendez printed fake business cards, held a film press party at a nightclub in Los Angeles, and took out advertisements in Variety and The Hollywood Reporter magazines. Fellow make-up artist Robert Sidell and his wife Andi assisted in the hoax; Andi posed as the receptionist of their fake production company. The rescue effort was successful, and Chambers was awarded CIA's Intelligence Medal of Merit, but he was required to keep his involvement a secret, until the story was declassified in 1997. In the 2012 Academy Award for Best Picture-winning film Argo, Chambers was portrayed by John Goodman.
Later life
Chambers retired in 1982 and lived in a retirement community, the Motion Picture Country Home, in Woodland Hills, California. In 1998, a documentary, A Tribute to John Chambers, directed by Scott Essman, was released. That same year, he was named 94th in the list of "100 most influential people in the history of the movies". Chambers was also given a "star" on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 7006 Hollywood Boulevard, one of few make-up artists to have one. Chambers died on August 25, 2001 in a California hospital, at age 78. He was survived by his wife Joan.
