Marcia Lucas, Academy Award-winning film editor star wars The ex-wife of director George Lucas has died. She was 80 years old.
Lucas died Wednesday in Rancho Mirage, California, from cancer.
“Marcia will be remembered as a remarkable storyteller, a pioneer for women in film, a loving mother and grandmother, a gracious hostess, and a devoted friend whose sense of humor and sparkle filled every room she entered,” the family said in a statement. “Her impact on film is indelible, but those who knew her best will remember the way she made life more vibrant, more beautiful, more fun, and full of love.”
A California native, Lucas (née Griffin) began her editing career through the Motion Picture Editors Guild’s apprenticeship program, eventually becoming an assistant to acclaimed film editor Verna Fields (Jaws, Paper moon). While working with Fields, she met her future husband, then a student at USC’s film school, who was also hired to assist Fields.
Lucas, who married George in 1969, was an assistant editor on George’s directorial debut thx1138.
She and Fields edited his next film, American graffitiIt received its first Academy Award nomination for Best Editing in 1974. William Reynolds received the award that year for his work on Stingbut Lucas would go on to win an Oscar for one of Hollywood’s most beloved films and her husband’s biggest success: star wars. Along with editors Paul Hirsch and Richard Chiu, she accepted the Academy Award for Best Editing from actors Farrah Fawcett and Marcello Mastroianni. The award was one of six Academy Awards he received star wars won, including Best Art Direction, Soundtrack, Costume Design and Visual Effects.
1977 Hollywood Reporter review star wars He particularly noted the film’s editing as “perfectly paced”. In his director’s biography, Walking in the Sky: The Life and Films of George LucasWriter Dale Bullock described the editor as her husband’s “secret weapon.”
George credited the editor for the film’s final battle sequence Rolling Stone In 1977, “My wife, Marcia, could usually cut an entire reel — all 10 minutes of a movie — in one week. I think it took eight weeks to cut that fight. It was very complicated and we had 40,000 feet of dialogue footage of the pilots saying this and that. She had to cut all that out, and do all the fighting as well. No one had really tried to incorporate an actual plot into a dogfight.”
It was also Lucas who suggested to the director that Darth Vader should kill Obi-Wan Kenobi, played by Alec Guinness. “The more I thought about Ben being killed, the more I liked the idea,” the director said. Rolling Stone. “It makes the threat Vader poses greater and that is tied to the power and the fact that he can use the dark side.”
Away from her then-husband, Lucas worked with famed director Martin Scorsese in the mid-1970s. She edited Scorsese’s film Alice doesn’t live here anymoreAnd supervised editing on both Taxi driver and New York, New York.
Lucas went to edit another star wars film, Return of the Jediwhich was released in 1983, the year she separated from George. on Return of the JediGeorge said his wife was due to “dying and crying” or emotional scenes. Return of the Jedi It is the last film in which Lucas, who later married and divorced artist Tom Rodriguez, is credited as editor.
“I love editing movies,” she said in 1983. Time magazine. “I have an innate ability to take good material and make it better, and to take bad material and make it fair.”
She is survived by her daughters, Amanda Lucas and Amy Soper, as well as her grandchildren.
