September 28, 2009

Warwick Davis



Warwick Davis' first claim to fame came at the age of 11 when he was cast in the role of Wicket in 'Return of the Jedi'. Other notable films include 'Willow', the 'Leprechaun' series, 'The Phantom Menace', and several from the 'Harry Potter' series.








September 21, 2009

Phil Brown



Phil Brown was born 4/30/1916 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He first appeared in the 1941 film 'I Wanted Wings'. In 1952 he help found the Actors Laboratory, and although he was not a Communist, he was blacklisted. Former actor Ronald Reagan had a role in that, as did J. Edgar Hoover.

As a result, he and his family moved to England in order to resume his acting career.

In 1977 he was cast as Owen Lars for the original Star Wars movie.

Brown died on 2/9/2006 from pneumonia.

Below is a photo of Mr. Brown that I took in Plano, TX in 1997 (you can see his wife Ginny beside him).






September 3, 2009

Maria De Aragon






Maria De Aragon is best known for her role of Greedo in the original Star Wars movie. Greedo, as you probably know, was one of the bounty hunters hired by Jabba the Hutt to capture Han Solo. Poor Greedo was killed at the cantina in Mos Eisley. Of course, in the original movie (which I got to see first hand in a theater in Houston) Greedo never shot at Han. In the video below he shoots first (Lucas had this done for the re-release so Han would not be a "cold blooded killer").




Prior to that she appeared in several low budget movies in the early 70s.


The Cremators


Blood Mania



Maria and I in Plano, TX

September 1, 2009

Michael Carter



Michael Carter is perhaps best known for his role as Bib Fortuna in 'Return of the Jedi'.

In an interview conducted by the guys at TheForce.net during one of the Dallas Sci-Fi Toy Show conventions Carter had this to say about his dialogue:

"Well somebody said--I don't know if it's true--that it was a Mongolian dialect run backwards. What they were doing in those days was coming across dialects from these obscure parts of the world and sort of running them backwards and writing it out phonetically. So, initially the lines had meant something, but all we got was Huttese. My first line was "Te wanna wanga." I can hardly remember any of them. I tried to create a meaning for them. I had a long scene with Mark Hamill when we walked down the corridor that was cut from the original which was all in Huttese. We each had our lines down, but it was very difficult to tell when the other had stopped speaking, so I'd be craning my neck around to watch his mouth. When he'd stop moving, I'd say my line. He was doing exactly the same thing. I had to shout at him, I remember, and when I shouted all my teeth came out in his face. But the scene we eventually shot was with both of us speaking English on the stairway. I don't think it was my voice but that it was someone impersonating my voice. You don't know what you're going to do in the part until you see yourself made-up."

I'm not sure when I took this photo, but I believe it was sometime around 1997. Big Bib is spanking Little Bib.