RIP Ralph McQuarrie, Star Wars production designer

Steak Snabler · Mar 4, 2012

Responsible for conceptualizing such iconic characters as Chewbacca, Darth Vader and C3PO. Dead at 82:

http://wapo.st/wj8cUv

Ralph McQuarrie, an artist whose paintings of a gold-plated robot in an otherworldly desert and an intergalactic sword duel between a scraggly youth and a black-masked villain helped persuade film executives to gamble on a young director named George Lucas and his visionary story, “Star Wars,” died March 3 at his home in Berkeley, Calif. He was 82.

He had complications from Parkinson’s disease, said John Scoleri, co-author of a book of Mr. McQuarrie’s art.

“Ralph McQuarrie was the first person I hired to help me envision ‘Star Wars,’ ” Lucas said in a statement posted online. “When words could not convey my ideas, I could always point to one of Ralph’s fabulous illustrations and say, ‘Do it like this.’ ”

Mr. McQuarrie, for instance, designed the Samurai-inspired helmet and black caped-outfit worn by arch nemesis Darth Vader. (It was Mr. McQuarrie’s idea to put a breathing apparatus on Vader’s mask, so that he could survive in the vacuum of space, which led to the villain’s raspy voice in the films.)
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Also worked on Raiders of the Lost Ark, ET and Close Encounters, among other films.

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RIP Ralph McQuarrie, Star Wars production designer

Steak Snabler Well-Known Member

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RIP Ralph McQuarrie, Star Wars production designer

Steak Snabler Well-Known Member

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