Six unsung heroes of the orig­i­nal Star Wars

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, George Lucas gath­ered a cast of bemused actors to final­ly begin film­ing his ambi­tious space opera: Star Wars. At the time, few peo­ple expect­ed it to be a suc­cess, with cer­tain cast mem­bers dis­miss­ing it as a ​“kids’ film.” The rest, as they say, is his­to­ry. Yet while Har­ri­son Ford, Car­rie Fish­er and Mark Hamill became house­hold names overnight, many of the tal­ent­ed behind-the-scenes men and women who con­tributed the film’s lega­cy fad­ed into obscu­ri­ty. With that in mind, here are six extra­or­di­nary artists whose influ­ence on the Star Wars phe­nom­e­non should not be underestimated.

The Real-Life Yoda

Stu­art Free­born is one of the few peo­ple on this list who already had a long career behind him when he joined Star Wars – and what a career it was. Before becom­ing the make-up supervisor/​designer on the orig­i­nal tril­o­gy, he worked on clas­sics like The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, Oliv­er Twist and 2001: A Space Odyssey, where he cre­at­ed the mas­ter­ful design of the apes. His influ­ence on Star Wars was sig­nif­i­cant, hav­ing been respon­si­ble for the look for Chew­bac­ca and Yoda, the lat­ter being par­tial­ly based on his own appear­ance. Free­born retired in 1990 before even­tu­al­ly pass­ing away at the remark­ably Yoda-like age of 98. He was recent­ly com­mem­o­rat­ed with an impe­r­i­al march by locals dressed as Stormtroop­ers in his home­town of Leytonstone.

The Vet­er­an Cinematographer

George Lucas hired anoth­er Kubrick col­lab­o­ra­tor in the shape of Gilbert Tay­lor, direc­tor of pho­tog­ra­phy on Dr Strangelove, A Hard Day’s Night, and Roman Polanski’s Mac­beth. He stepped in for A New Hope, but despite his expe­ri­ence, it was far from a relax­ing shoot. Famous­ly he and Lucas didn’t speak dur­ing pre-pro­duc­tion and when it came to film­ing, the pair clashed over how the film should look. Tay­lor was a founder mem­ber of the British Soci­ety of Cin­e­matog­ra­phers and bizarrely, when the British film indus­try was strug­gling in the ​’70s, he ran a dairy farm with his wife.

The Death Star Designer

Tay­lor strug­gled to buy into Lucas’ vision for Star Wars, but John Bar­ry was one of the few peo­ple who believed in its poten­tial from the start. He worked on the Death Star’s design with Ralph McQuar­rie and built Luke’s Tat­tooine home­stead from scratch, feats that won him an Oscar for Best Pro­duc­tion Design on A New Hope. It’s poignant that his work as sec­ond unit direc­tor on The Empire Strikes Back was to be his last. A month into film­ing, he col­lapsed on set and died lat­er that day from menin­gi­tis – a sad end to a promis­ing career which includ­ed cred­its for A Clock­work Orange and Superman.

The Man Behind the Meme

While John Barry’s career was cru­el­ly cut short, count­less oth­er Star Wars crew mem­bers went on to dom­i­nate their respec­tive fields in the film indus­try for decades. Phil ​“You Had One Job” Tip­pett was just a hum­ble stop motion ani­ma­tor on Episodes IV and V, respon­si­ble for ani­mat­ing Empire’s AT-ATs and tauntauns. His work as a ​‘dinosaur super­vi­sor’ on Juras­sic Park earned him an Acad­e­my Award in 1994 – his sec­ond fol­low­ing his Spe­cial Achieve­ment Award for Visu­al Effects on Return of the Jedi – and has since seen him achieve meme infamy.

The Make-Up Master

Tip­pett also made a less­er known con­tri­bu­tion as a mem­ber of the infa­mous Can­ti­na band, along­side two peo­ple who would come to rule the world of spe­cial effects make-up: Rick Bak­er and Rob Bot­tin. On A New Hope, Bak­er was a com­plete unknown, work­ing on sec­ond unit make-up, but now he’s the win­ner of a record sev­en Oscars in his dis­ci­pline. He craft­ed leg­endary looks for An Amer­i­can Were­wolf in Lon­don and Michael Jackson’s ​‘Thriller’. Beyond his work in the Can­ti­na, Baker’s then wife Elaine also has the unique hon­our of being the first per­son to play the Emper­or Pal­pa­tine when the char­ac­ter appears as a holo­gram in The Empire Strikes Back.

The Appren­tice

Bak­er might be the biggest name in the world of spe­cial effects make-up, but if any­one can chal­lenge him for that man­tle, it’s Rob Bot­tin, the Luke to his Obi-Wan. Bot­tin got in touch with his idol in search of an auto­graph, but Bak­er was so impressed by the accom­pa­ny­ing draw­ing that he offered to take Bot­tin on as his appren­tice for A New Hope. After Star Wars, Bot­tin cre­at­ed the incred­i­ble pros­thet­ics for The Thing, work­ing such insane hours – sev­en days a week for over a year – that by the time it wrapped he was diag­nosed with extreme exhaustion.