Ralph McQuarrie died on March 4, 2012 - he is NOT on the list - to obscure. Others connected to Star Wars who are on the list are Peter Mayhew age 67 (but he is 7 foot 3 inches tall), Kenny Baker age 77, David Prowse age 76, John Williams age 80, Billy Dee Williams age 74 and James Earl Jones age 81. Who will still be alive in 2022? George Lucas thinks we will all be gone this December. Is he right?
Ralph McQuarrie, Artist Who Helped Bring ‘Star Wars’ to Life, Dies at 82
Courtesy of Lucasfilm Ltd
Ralph McQuarrie helped create the visual core of the “Star Wars” saga, such as this rendition of spacecraft.
Ralph McQuarrie, the artist who transformed George Lucas’s rudimentary concepts and earliest scripts into lush, vivid images of intergallactic expanse and light-saber combat that became the visual core of the “Star Wars” saga, died on Saturday at his home in Berkeley, Calif. He was 82.
Mr. McQuarrie had a hand in some of the most successful science-fiction and adventure films of the 1970s, ’80s and early ’90s. He created the original drawings for the mother ship in Steven Spielberg’s “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” (1977) and the spaceship for Mr. Spielberg’s “ET” (1982). He also did conceptual art for “Raiders of the Lost Ark” (1981),“Star Trek IV” (1986), “Batteries Not Included” (1987) and“Jurassic Park” (1993), as well as for the original “Battlestar Galactica” TV series.
In 1986, he shared an Academy Award for visual effects for the movie “Cocoon,” about a group of elderly people who regain their youth with the help of aliens.
But Mr. McQuarrie was best known as the concept artist for the first three of the six “Star Wars” films: “Star Wars” (1977), “The Empire Strikes Back” (1980) and “Return of the Jedi” (1983). Mr. Lucas’s tale of cosmic civil war against the evil regime of Emperor Palpatine had been rejected by both United Artists and Universal when Mr. McQuarrie was brought on board. After Mr. Lucas placed before him illustrations from comic books and several pages from an early script for the first “Star Wars” film, Mr. McQuarrie came back with a dozen full-color renditions of Mr. Lucas’s imaginings.
Mr. McQuarrie’s paintings, most of them in gouache, would be pivotal in persuading the board of directors of 20th Century Fox to finance the first film in the series, and to distribute the others under the production of Lucasfilm Ltd.
“These paintings helped George get the movie approved by Fox because it gave them something to visualize, instead of just a script,” said Steve Sansweet, the author of 16 “Star Wars” books and until recently the director of fan relations for Lucasfilm.
Among the original images was a tall, elegant, expressionless Art Decoesque golden female robot. Standing to the side was a small, silver robot with a trashcan-like dome, bearing what looked like a big Swiss army knife with an array of implements. That painting became the model for the two droids in the “Stars Wars” films. The female evolved into the male droid C-3PO; the sidekick became R2-D2.
Another painting depicted a laser-sword fight between two characters. One was swathed in a flowing black cape, a Japanese samurai-like helmet and a mask that filtered a deep, raspy voice; the other was a blond figure wearing a scuba-like breathing mask. They would become the archvillain Darth Vader and the young hero Luke Skywalker, later revealed to be Darth Vader’s son.
“Ralph McQuarrie was the first person I hired to help me envision ‘Star Wars,’ ” Mr. Lucas said in a written statement. “When words could not convey my ideas, I could always point to one of Ralph’s fabulous illustrations and say, ‘Do it like this.’ ”
He added, “In many ways, he was a generous father to a conceptual art revolution that was born of his artwork, and which seized the imaginations of thousands and propelled them into the film industry.”
Ralph Angus McQuarrie was born June 13, 1929, in Gary, Ind., and grew up on a farm near Billings, Mont. He saw combat with the Army during the Korean War and survived a bullet to the head. After the war he attended what is now known as the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena.
His is survived by his wife of 29 years, the former Joan Benjamin, and a sister, Joan Wolf.
Mr. McQuarrie first worked as a technical illustrator for the Boeing Company. He later joined an animation company in California and produced illustrations for CBS’s coverage of the Apollo space program. He was introduced to Mr. Lucas by two colleagues of the director who had known Mr. Lucas when they were students at the University of Southern California film school.
Mr. McQuarrie’s work has found fans not only among moviegoers. The Hasbro toy company created a line of McQuarrie Signature action figures, based on his initial concepts of Star Wars characters, including Chewbacca, Han Solo and Darth Vader.
And he became one himself.
“He had a cameo in ‘The Empire Strikes Back,’ dressed as a rebel officer, no dialogue,” Mr. Sansweet said. “Fans loved that, and in 2007, the 30th anniversary of the first ‘Star Wars,’ Hasbro produced a figure of General McQuarrie, rebel officer. His hands are behind his back; it has a blaster in his holster. It looks just like him.”
Filmography
Star Wars (1977)
(production illustrator)
Close Encounters
of the Third Kind (1977) (Mother Ship designer)
Battlestar
Galactica (1978) (production and concept illustrator)
Star Wars Holiday
Special (1978) (illustrator)
The Empire Strikes
Back (1980) (design consultant and conceptual artist)
Raiders of the
Lost Ark (1981) (ILM illustrator)
E.T. the
Extra-Terrestrial (1982) (scenic artist/spaceship design)
Return of the Jedi
(1983) (conceptual artist)
Cocoon (1985)
(conceptual artist)
Star Trek IV: The
Voyage Home (1986) (visual consultant)
*batteries not
included (1987) (conceptual artist)
Nightbreed (1990)
(conceptual artist)
Back to the
Future: The Ride (1991) (conceptual artist) (uncredited)
Actor
The Empire Strikes
Back (1980) - General McQuarrie (uncredited)
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