How Did I Get Here?

Quote of the Day: “No. I am your father.”

- Darth Vader

My family watched the last installment of the original Star Wars trilogy tonight. Don’t even get me started on how it was the last one in the storyline chronology but the third made. We get into explanation hell every time we get near that one.

After the show, I did my usual wandering up to the computer and did some research about the cast of the show. It starts with www.imdb.com and spokes out from there and you can imagine with the popularity of the Star Wars movies, the field was ready for harvesting.

The general theme I found with the official actor sites was that most of them were out to make a fast buck, cashing in on their celebrity based on these movies. The notable exception was the guy who played C3PO, but I’ll get to that.

The first thing that surprised me was that imdb had very little pictures of the very actors I wanted to see the most (the ones behind the masks). So I had to do some serious Googleing but I will let you in on the fruits of my labor.

Chewbacca
Let’s start with Chewbacca (the fact that Word does not flag that as a misspelling speaks volumes.)

The actor is named Peter Mayhew and was the first to disgust me with his complete selling-out. He only signs autographs for money ($20 for a signed pic of him, $15 if you provide the item.)

Oh, Chewy, say it ain’t so.

He was also the first to scare the bejesus out of me through his freakish 7’3” appearance. And that’s BEFORE he puts on the costume!! Here, see what I mean?

Here are two facts I found interesting:

Fell sick during the filming of Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back (1980), which prompted director Irvin Kershner to bring in another extremely tall actor to fill in for him as Chewbacca. All the footage with the double was scrapped and reshot after Mayhew recovered because Kershner found that the double’s body movements didn’t match Mayhew’s.

He had the option of either playing Darth Vader or Chewbacca, as did David Prowse. Mayhew chose Chewbacca because he wanted to play a hero and Prowse chose Vader because he wanted to play a villain.

R2D2
Next we have the midget (little guy? Dwarf? I don’t know, pick the PC term and go with it) that played R2D2. His name is Kenny Baker and he too is willing to sell stuff to ya. Here he is sticking out of R2D2’s body.

Here are some cool facts:

He’s 3′ 8″

Dwarf (that’s all it said so as funny as the simplicity of it is, I guess it solves my quandary).

He and Anthony Daniels (C3PO) are the only actors to have a role in all six Star Wars movies.

Although he and his wife are both dwarfs, their children are not.

Princess Leia
Princess Leia was played by Carrie Fisher. The gold slave suit was kickin’ …

… but alas, some things are better left to memory. Example.

BTW, she’s the daughter of Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher.

Father Eddie Fisher left when she was 3 years old to marry Elizabeth Taylor.

Rumors have circulated for years that she had an affair with Harrison Ford during the filming of the first Star Wars film. Both deny this, but Carrie has admitted in interviews that she had a crush on Ford and spent a lot of time with him off camera. (Maybe he shuoldn’t have used the “Laugh it up, furball!!” line on her.)

She allegedly disliked the “bagel bun” hair style she wore in the original Star Wars (1977), but she didn’t say anything about it because she was afraid that director George Lucas would get angry and fire her.

When asked what her favorite moment from the Star Wars trilogy are, she replied that her favorite moments were the arguing scenes between her and Harrison Ford.

Stood on a box for many of her scenes with Harrison Ford in the Star Wars trilogy, owing to the fact that she was roughly a foot shorter than him and didn’t fit into the frame.

C3PO
C3PO was played by Anthony Daniels (http://www.anthonydaniels.com/) and he is a class act. Not only does he point out that he will not ask you to buy anything on his site but actually lists many fake autographs to warn you not to buy them. I thought this was refreshing that he wasn’t trying to cash in on his famous character.

Here is what he looks like:

Ironically enough, Anthony Daniels was never a science fiction fan. The only science fiction movie he ever saw in a theatre was 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). He was so dissatisfied with the movie that he walked out after only ten minutes and demanded his money back!

As C-3PO, he has the first line in the first Star Wars (Star Wars (1977)) and the last line in the last Star Wars (Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith (2005)).

On the first time he saw the sketch of C-3PO: “When I saw the painting by the design artist, the eyes of the character looked deep into my soul. He was a very forlorn figure with an abandoned air. He really did look into my soul. We made this tremendous contact.”

Darth Vader
I’ve saved the best for last: Darth Vader.

He was actually played by three people at once:

The costume was filled by a former weightlifting champion named David Prowse who is 6’7”.

He commented in an interview that he was unaware that his voice been dubbed with that of James Earl Jones’ until he saw the movie on opening night.

He was barred from doing the lightsaber duels in “The Empire Strikes Back” and “Return of the Jedi” because he kept breaking the poles that stood in for the laser blades during the first film. The lightsaber duels in the sequels were instead done by Bob Anderson, the swordmaster who handled the lightsaber choreography; in order to make up for the height difference, Anderson wore platform shoes and was often filmed from low angles.

David Prowse and James Earl Jones have never met in person.

It sucks that he charges for autographs. Darth Vader, you ARE evil!

Darth’s Voice
Just about everyone knows that James Earl Jones provided the voice. Here are some treats for ya:

Took acting lessons to control his stutter.

Provided the voice for Mufasa in The Lion King.

He’s the commanding voice that says “This is CNN”

Callers using Bell Atlantic pay phones often hear Jones’s voice assuring them that “This is Bell Atlantic“, just before a female voice asks for a calling card number.

Was once an Army officer after college.

His “death” was announced during a live broadcast of an NBA playoff game in April of 1998; the deceased was actually James Earl Ray, convicted assassin of Martin Luther King. (Here is another blog I wrote about a similar problem he ran into.)

Known for his humility, he declined to have his name appear on the credits of both Star Wars and Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, claiming that he felt his contribution wasn’t significant enough to warrant a credit. He did agree to have his name appear of the credits of Star Wars: Return of the Jedi.

And he never said “Luke, I AM your father!”em>

The actual dialogue was this:

Darth Vader: If you only knew the power of the Dark Side. Obi-Wan never told you what happened to your father.
Luke: He told me enough. He told me you killed him.
Darth Vader: No. I am your father.
Luke: No. That’s not true. That’s impossible.
Darth Vader: Search your feelings you know it to be true.
Luke: Nooooo. Nooooo.

The Face of Vader
When Darth (yes, we are on a first name basis) was unmasked in The Return of the Jedi, the face you saw belonged to Sebastian Shaw. He died in 1994. It seems some people were a bit pissed that in the edited version of the movie, they replaced his “ghost” at the end of the movie. Here is the scoop:

Sebastian Shaw also appeared later in The Return of the Jedi as the disembodied spirit of Anakin Skywalker. Upon the DVD release of the Star Wars Trilogy (Episodes IV, V, and VI) in September of 2004, many fans were upset that the ghostly figure of Anakin was no longer Sebastian Shaw. The scene had been changed to show actor Hayden Christensen, who portrays Anakin in Episodes II and III of the prequels. Another rumored change for the DVDs was the removal of Sebastian Shaws eyebrows to emphasize an injury that Anakin receives in 2005′s Episode III.

So here is a recap of Vader:

The Body	The Voice	The Face
David Prowse	James Earl Jones	Sebastian Shaw

Free Advice for Today: “Listen to rumors, but don’t contribute any of your own.”

- H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

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