He was born in Hillsboro, TX and raised in Sayre, OK. After graduating from high school in 1935, like so many others from Oklahoma in the '30s, he hitchhiked to California, the golden state, where he hoped to find work. Within three years he was married and, with the help of his father-in-law, a painter at MGM studios, had a job as a studio handyman. Starting right at the bottom, literally, Flowers spent his first 19 nights at his new job on his hands and knees polishing a dance floor that Mickey Rooney used. He eventually moved from floors to grounds and was given the "greenman" assignment wherein his responsibility included feeding and nursing and otherwise maintaining plants, flowers, and any turf on movie sets. By the mid-'40s, Flowers had worked his way into the studio property department and from there onto assignments working with special effects. Explosives became his forte, but anything mechanical proved his domain.
Whether employing hydraulics, electronics, or pyrotechnics -- skills that he studied at trade schools while practicing them in movies -- Flowers helped create or re-create fires, floods, dog fights (the aerial kind), bombs bursting in air, etc. For the Pearl Harbor attack in TORA! TORA! TORA! he positioned more than 100 gigantic smoke pots in strategic locations around the actual harbor. Each pot was ignited manually and managed not only to replicate the explosions but also to obscure any fixtures in the harbor that postdated the attack and could have belied the film's authenticity. While working on the set of THE GODFATHER (1972), he discovered a formula for fake blood. He used Karo syrup, dish soap and red and blue dye, which when combined gave blood a real-life consistency. He also created a special jacket worn in gunfight scenes that produced blood in small, pulsating spurts. The effect can be seen in the scene where Sonny (James Caan) has been riddled with bullets and lies dying; his wounds pump the blood in a manner consistent with a dying man's fading heartbeat.
In "1941," Flowers devised the effect of the Ferris wheel rolling into the Pacific Ocean by using a miniature Ferris wheel and the indoor water tank that Esther Williams had frequented in many of her aquatic scenes in her movies at MGM. In order to avoid paying out at the very least an extra $200,000 for the rebuilding of the two-story house set that topples over a cliff in "1941," director Steven Speilberg wanted to capture the destruction in one take. Flowers had never done this kind of effect before, but managed to convince Speilberg "on average" the house would fall without a hitch. To the relief and delight of everyone, and probably to his great surprise, the house did just what Flowers had said it would.
Flowers and Logan R. Frazee collaborated to create an apparatus that used miniature planes to simulate the bank and roll of planes in aerial combat. They dubbed the apparatus the "guillotine" for the shape and look of it. Frazee and Flowers shared a 1979 technical achievement Oscar for their creation. Again working with Frazee, Flowers created the climactic flood on the roof of THE TOWERING INFERNO. They put in place four tanks of water and sent more than 3,000 gallons of water rushing onto the set.
For many years he enjoyed the role of chief of mechanical special effects at 20th Century-Fox. And his specialties were not limited to movies. He also plied his trade in television on shows such as "Gunsmoke" and "Combat!" Notable credits other than those already mentioned include TAKE THE MONEY AND RUN (1969), BLOODY MAMA and RIO LOBO (both 1970), SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL GUNFIGHTER and HAROLD AND MAUDE (both 1971), SLEEPER and DILLENGER (both 1973), THE GODFATHER, PART II (1974), THE MISSOURI BREAKS (1976), THE FURY (1978) and APOCALYPSE NOW (1979).
Flowers retired to Camarillo, California, in 1979. He died July 5, 2001 from complications of emphysema and pneumonia.
Special Visual Effects 1970: TORA! TORA! TORA! (w. L. B. Abbott)
Special Visual Effects 1972: THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE (w. L. B. Abbott)
Nominated for Special Visual Effects 1979: 1941 (w. William A. Fraker & Gregory Jein)
Scientific/Technical Awards (Class III) 1979 - For the development of a device to control flight patterns of miniature airplanes during motion picture photography. (w. Logan R. Frazee)
3 nominations, 2 Awards, 1 Scientific/Techical Award