May the Fourth be with you as we look back at the actors who built the Star Wars film franchise
As Star Wars fans around the world celebrate May the fourth, we take a look at what happened the cast of Star Wars: A New Hope following its stunning success.
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How many movies can boast a global day in their honour?
May the fourth is Star Wars Day, a day fans of the beloved film franchise celebrate their obsession in a play on the Jedi tiding, “May the Force be with you”.
To mark the day here’s a look at the movie that started it all 42 years ago, and what happened to the stars of one of the most popular films of all time.
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STAR WARS: A NEW HOPE (1977)
The first instalment of George Lucas’s visionary space adventure series (which he wrote and directed) was released in the US on May 25, 1977.
A rollicking fairy tale set in a galaxy far, far away, Star Wars had a wizard, a princess, a young hero on a quest — plus space battles, crazy alien creatures and one of the all-time baddest baddies.
Many critics loved it, with Time magazine naming it the year’s best film, but few could have imagined the phenomenon it would become.
It became the highest-grossing film of all time, until E.T came along in 1982.
The film won six technical Oscars (art direction, sound, editing, effects and musical score).
Lucas was nominated for best director and screenplay, as was Sir Alec Guinness (Obi-Wan Kenobi).
The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Return of the Jedi (1983) followed, but it would not be until 1999 that the next in the series, The Phantom Menace (which is the first chronologically in the Star Wars story) would be released.
Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker)
After small television roles Hamill was cast in cast as the pivotal character, playing the young farm boy on the path of becoming a Jedi knight at the age of 24.
Since Return of The Jedi (1983), Hamill has had countless movie and television roles, but you might not have recognised him in many of them.
Like the hundreds of voiceovers for video games and cartoons, like Regular Show and Dragons: Riders of Berk.
He returned to the Star Wars franchise for The Force Awakens (2015) and 2017’s The Last Jedi, and is set to appear in the upcoming The Rise of Skywalker (later this year).
Carrie Fisher (Princess Leia)
The daughter of actor Debbie Reyonds and singer Eddie Fisher was 19 when she auditioned for the role that made her a star.
She appeared in several movies after the Star Wars series wrapped, but also moved into writing.
In 1987 her novel Postcards from the Edge, largely about her battles with addiction and mental health issues and her relationship with her famous mum, was made into a film starring Meryl Streep.
She performed and write a successful one-woman stage show Wishful Drinking and worked as a ‘script doctor’ on many movies, refining and editing screenplays.
She died suddenly at the age of 60 in 2016 after appearing in The Force Awakens.
She had already finished filming much of her role in The Last Jedi.
Harrison Ford (Han Solo)
His turn as a roguish pilot and smuggler launched Ford’s career, but Harrison Ford had all but given up on acting when he was cast. He had returned to working as a carpenter when Lucas chose him to play Solo.
Ford went on to land the title role in another incredibly popular franchise involving George Lucas — the Indiana Jones films, on which Lucas was a writer.
In between filming the Star Wars movies Ford
Ford returned as Solo in The Force Awakens.
James Earl Jones (Darth Vader)
James Earl Jones’ work as the voice of Darth Vader is among his best known roles over seven decades as an actor — and his name was left out of the first two Star Wars films at his request.
He explained in an interview with Newsday in 2008: “When Linda Blair did the girl in The Exorcist, they hired Mercedes McCambridge to do the voice of the devil coming out of her.
And there was controversy as to whether Mercedes should get credit. I was one who thought no, she was just special effects. So when it came to Darth Vader, I said, no, I’m just special effects. But it became so identified that by the third one, I thought, OK I’ll let them put my name on it.”
His name was left off the credits for the first two films in the original trilogy but was credited in Return of the Jedi.
Jones’ voice as Vader reappeared briefly in Revenge of the Sith, and his celebrated career continued with numerous award-winning film, television, stage and voice acting roles.
Sir Alec Guinness (Obi-wan Kenobi)
It’s well known that Sir Alec Guinnes, the consummate actor, was not much of a fan of the Star Wars films upon which he is so strongly identified among younger generations.
The great gift he earned from the film, in addition to a salary, was a 2.25 per cent cut of the revenue from the film, one of the biggest box office hits of all time,
He later said this gave him the ability to live in relative comfort and to refuse roles that he did not want to play.
Guinness won a BAFTA award for his portrayal of George Smiley in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (a TV adaptation of the John le Carre novel, and reprised the role in Smiley’s People in 1982.
He famously appeared as the ghost of Sigmund Freud in the 1983 Dudley Moore film Lovesick, and as Godbole in the 1984 film A Passage to India and one of his final roles was in the BBC drama Eskimo Day in 1996. He died in 2000.
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