The Making of The Empire Strikes Back

George Walton Lucas Jr. (born May 14, 1944) is an American filmmaker and entrepreneur. Lucas is known for creating the Star Wars and Indiana Jones franchises and founding Lucasfilm, LucasArts and Industrial Light & Magic. He served as chairman of Lucasfilm before selling it to The Walt Disney Company in 2012. After graduating from the University of Southern California in 1967, Lucas co-founded American Zoetrope with filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola. Lucas wrote and directed THX 1138 (1971), based on his earlier student short Electronic Labyrinth: THX 1138 4EB, which was a critical success but a financial failure. His next work as a writer-director was the film American Graffiti (1973), inspired by his youth in early 1960s Modesto, California, and produced through the newly founded Lucasfilm. The film was critically and commercially successful, and received five Academy Award nominations including Best Picture. Lucas's next film, the epic space opera Star Wars (1977), had a troubled production but was a surprise hit, becoming the highest-grossing film at the time, winning six Academy Awards and sparking a cultural phenomenon. Lucas produced and co-wrote the sequels The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Return of the Jedi (1983). With director Steven Spielberg, he created, produced and co-wrote the Indiana Jones films Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), Temple of Doom (1984), The Last Crusade (1989) and Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008). He also produced and wrote a variety of films and television series through Lucasfilm between the 1970s and the 2010s. In 1997, Lucas rereleased the Star Wars trilogy as part of a special edition featuring several alterations; home media versions with further changes were released in 2004 and 2011. He returned to directing with a Star Wars prequel trilogy comprising The Phantom Menace (1999), Attack of the Clones (2002), and Revenge of the Sith (2005). He last collaborated on the CGI-animated television series Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008–2014, 2020), the war film Red Tails (2012), and the CGI film Strange Magic (2015). Lucas is one of history's most financially successful filmmakers and has been nominated for four Academy Awards. His films are among the 100 highest-grossing movies at the North American box office, adjusted for ticket-price inflation. Lucas is considered a significant figure of the 20th-century New Hollywood movement. Description above from the Wikipedia article George Lucas, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Mark Richard Hamill (born September 25, 1951) is an American actor, voice artist, producer, director, and writer. Hamill is best known for his role as Luke Skywalker in the original Star Wars trilogy and also well known for voice-acting characters such as the Joker in various animated series, animated films and video games, beginning with Batman: The Animated Series, the Skeleton king in Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go!, Fire Lord Ozai in Avatar: The Last Airbender, Master Eraqus in Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep, Skips in Regular Show, and Senator Stampington on Metalocalypse.

Carrie Frances Fisher (October 21, 1956 - December 27, 2016) was an American actress, novelist, screenwriter, and lecturer. Daughter of the famous actors Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher, she gained fame for her portrayal of Princess Leia Organa in the original Star Wars trilogy. Her novel Postcards from the Edge was also a bestseller, for which she wrote a screenplay to the film of the same name.

Legendary Hollywood Icon Harrison Ford was born on July 13, 1942 in Chicago, Illinois. His family history includes a strong lineage of actors, radio personalities, and models. Ford attended public high school in Park Ridge, Illinois where he was a member of the school Radio Station WMTH. Ford worked as the lead voice for sports reporting at WMTH for several years. Acting wasn't a major interest to Ford until his junior year at Ripon College when he first took an acting class. Ford's career started in 1964 when he travelled to California in search of a voice-over job. He never received that position, but instead signed a contract with Columbia Pictures where he earned $150 weekly to play small fill in roles in various films. Through the '60s Ford worked on several TV shows including Gunsmoke, Ironside, Kung Fu, and American Style. It wasn't until 1967 that he received his first credited role in the Western film, A Time for Killing. Dissatisfied with the meager roles he was being offered, Ford took a hiatus from acting to work as a self-employed carpenter. This seemingly odd diversion turned out to be a blessing in disguise for Harrison's acting career when he was soon hired by famous film producer George Lucas. This was a turning point in Ford's life that led to him be casted in milestone roles such as Han Solo and Indiana Jones. Since his most famous roles in the original Star Wars trilogy and Raiders of the Lost Ark, Ford has appeared in over 40 films. Many criticize his late-career work, saying his performances have been lackluster, leading to commercially disappointing films. Ford has always worked hard to protect his off-screen private life, keeping details about his children and marriages quiet. He has a total of five children including one recent adoption with third and current wife Calista Flockhart. In addition to acting, Ford is passionate about environmental conservation, aviation, and archeology.

Peter Mayhew (May 19, 1944 – April 30, 2019) was a British-American actor, best known for playing Chewbacca in the Star Wars films. Mayhew was born on 19 May 1944 in Barnes, Surrey, where he was also raised. His height was a product not of gigantism — "I don't have the big head" — but of an overactive pituitary gland secondary to a genetic disease called Marfan Syndrome. The overactive pituitary gland was treated successfully in his mid-teens. His peak height was 7 feet 3 inches (2.21 m)

Anthony Daniels (born February 21, 1946) is an English actor and mime artist, best known for playing C-3PO in 10 Star Wars films. He is the only actor to have either appeared in or been involved with all theatrical films in the series, and has been involved in many of their spin-offs, including television series, video games, and radio serials. Description above from the Wikipedia article Anthony Daniels, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.​

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Kenneth George "Kenny" Baker (24 August 1934 – 13 August 2016) was a British actor and musician, best known as the man inside R2-D2 in the popular Star Wars film series. Description above from the Wikipedia article Kenny Baker, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Irvin Kershner (April 29, 1923 – November 27, 2010) was an American film director and occasional actor, best known for directing quirky, independent films early in his career, and then Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back. Description above from the Wikipedia article Irvin Kershner , licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Benjamin "Ben" Burtt, Jr. (born July 12, 1948) is an American sound designer for the films Star Wars (1977), Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978), Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989) and WALL-E (2008). He is also a film editor and director, screenwriter, and voice actor. He is most notable for creating many of the iconic sound effects heard in the Star Wars film franchise, including the "voice" of R2-D2, the lightsaber hum and the heavy-breathing sound of Darth Vader. Description above from the Wikipedia article Ben Burtt, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Phil Tippett is an American filmmaker and multi-award-winning visual effects supervisor and producer, specializing in creature design, stop-motion, and computerized character animation. Over his career, he has assisted ILM, DreamWorks, and his own company Tippet Studios, with his work appearing in movies such as the original Star Wars trilogy, Jurassic Park, and RoboCop.

Des Webb was an actor.

John Towner Williams (born February 8, 1932) is an American composer, conductor, and pianist. Widely regarded as one of the greatest American composers of all time, he has composed some of the most popular, recognizable, and critically acclaimed film scores in cinematic history in a career spanning over six decades. Williams has won 24 Grammy Awards, seven British Academy Film Awards, five Academy Awards, and four Golden Globe Awards. With 51 Academy Award nominations, he is the second most-nominated individual, after Walt Disney. In 2005, the American Film Institute selected Williams's score to 1977's Star Wars as the greatest American film score of all time. The soundtrack to Star Wars was additionally preserved by the Library of Congress into the National Recording Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". Williams has composed for many critically acclaimed and popular movies, including the Star Wars series, Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Superman, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, the Indiana Jones series, the first two Home Alone films, Hook, the first two Jurassic Park films, Schindler's List, and the first three Harry Potter films. He has been associated with director Steven Spielberg since 1974, composing music for all but four of his feature films––Duel, The Color Purple, Bridge of Spies and Ready Player One. Other works by Williams include theme music for the 1984 Summer Olympic Games, NBC Sunday Night Football, "The Mission" theme used by NBC News and Seven News in Australia, the television series Lost in Space and Land of the Giants, and the incidental music for the first season of Gilligan's Island. Williams has also composed numerous classical concertos and other works for orchestral ensembles and solo instruments. He served as the Boston Pops's principal conductor from 1980 to 1993, and is its laureate conductor. He was inducted into the Hollywood Bowl's Hall of Fame in 2000, and was a recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors in 2004 and the AFI Life Achievement Award in 2016. Williams composed the score for eight of the top 20 highest-grossing films at the U.S. box office (adjusted for inflation).