FILM Q&A with Robert Watts, a production maestro on the original ‘Star Wars’ and ‘Indiana Jones’ films.

By Adam Locks

Born in 1938, Robert Watts is one of the most respected and successful British producers in the film industry. Although his name is most well known for his association with the first three ‘Star Wars’ films and first three Indiana Jones movies, he has been involved with many other high profile projects. As the saying goes, ‘A picture speaks a thousand words’, and so does Robert’s CV: it’s an astonishing list that shows him having worked with many of the most significant players in the history of British and American cinema. He’s worked with the likes of Roman Polanski, and Stanley Kubrick, through to being the Production Supervisor on ‘Star Wars’ (George Lucas, 1977) the list really is endless. In a room full of movie props Adam Locks meets a man whose films have been the largest cinematic influence on millions of children from the 1970s and 1980s.

The first thing I must ask you is what does a producer do because many people don’t know? It’s a rather nebulous job title.

R W: I have a stock answer to this. It’s ironic. A producer nurtures talent because he hasn’t got any himself. Obviously though, the director is directing the film, the producer has the overview – what’s yet to come, what’s behind you, and what’s going on now. I was always on set first thing in the morning, middle of the morning, before the lunch break, after the lunch break, the middle of the afternoon, and before the wrap at the end of the day. But I’m not on set all the time. I can’t be. It’s not my job. If I’m sitting on set all day, I’m not running the film. You get a lot of producers who really should be called Executive Producers because they sit on set throughout the day.

It’s amazing how many films you’ve made with George Lucas.

RW: There were six films which defined Lucasfilm really: the three ‘Star Wars’ and the three ‘Indiana Jones’ and I was the only one in the producer capacity who survived all six.

Clearly you were doing something right.

RW: I don’t want to blow my own trumpet…

Why not?

RW: I did what I did, but I got to solo produce the last two Indiana films, ‘Temple of Doom’ and ‘Last Crusade’. Like a lot of us, you suffer from a great deal of self-doubt because these films are so intense and you’ve got to be on all the time because, basically, you’re looking for the problems which are going to occur and delay the production.

Let’s go back to how you got started in the movie business.

RW: The time I got into film in 1960, there really were no film schools. The National Film School had not begun yet; there was the odd course going, but nothing like today at all these universities. The only way in was to become a runner. There was that difficult situation whereby you can’t get into the union until you’ve got a union job, but you can’t get a union job unless you’re in the union.

Catch-22.

RW: Eventually you break through and my first film was ‘A French Mistress’ made in 1960 and I was a runner. Then after the films ‘Fury at Smuggler’s Bay’ and ‘The Secret Ways’, both from 1961, I got a permanent job with a company that made TV commercials and the odd documentary; that was Francis-Montagu Productions. I was with them for two and a half years. While I was with them, I got the union card and then I went back into the film industry as a Second Assistant Director. The Second Assistant Director is basically the lisaon between the office and set; I was the one to tell the actors what time they had to be at the studio, what scenes we were shooting. So, anyway, that’s how it began.

Going back to ‘A French Mistress’ from 1960, it’s a wonderful cast with Ian Bannen, Cecil Parker and Irene Handl. Were you star struck on your first film?

RW: It was ridiculous. Here I am with all these people I’d seen since I was a boy. One day at Shepperton I was walking past the stars’ dressing rooms and I walked up to a door and two people were coming so I held the door open. I heard this “Thank you”, and it was Bob Hope and Bing Crosby. They were doing that film ‘Road to Hong Kong’ which was the last of the seven comedy films they’d done together. Joan Collins was also in it.

‘Fury at Smuggler’s Bay’ was very Hammeresque, wasn’t it? Wonderful title.

RW: I didn’t do the whole thing. I did the studio end of it. That was the film where I first met Peter Cushing. The director was John Gilling.

He was a big Hammer director directing films such as ‘Plague of the Zombies’.

RW: Yes, yes. I also did a Hammer film with Freddie Francis called ‘Hysteria’. I joined that company making TV commercials and then went back into features of which ‘Man in the Middle’ was the first. That was 1963 and starred Robert Mitchum.

The director of ‘Man in the Middle’ was Guy Hamilton, who became a major Bond director. Was he your way into the Bond films later on?

RW: No. I ended up doing two Bond films, ‘Thunderball’ and ‘You Only Live Twice’. On the second film I became Location Manager. I had to live in Japan for six months. I was there way ahead of the crew and then stayed afterwards. When I arrived, I was the only Englishman there. All the rest were Japanese.

Had you had any experience as Location Manager?

RW: Yeah. For example, on ‘Thunderball’ the opening is in France. Because we started the film in France and I could speak French, I worked directly with a French Production Manager. I set up the whole of Paris with his help. So anyway, I knew what I had to do.

I should point out that between the two Bond films, you were working with Stanley Kubrick on 2001.

RW: Yes, but I didn’t stay for all the model shots because they took forever. Stanley didn’t want me to go, but I kept telling him that I wasn’t doing anything. Eventually he let me go. So I then went on to ‘You Only Live Twice’.

What was Kubrick like to know and work for?

RW: He was one of the funniest people I ever met. He was quite an amazing person in the sense that he could assimilate the project. He was using someone on the film, who worked at NASA and Kubrick almost knew more about the stuff than he did. He was able to assimilate everything really well.

Moving back to You Only Live Twice, what was Japan like to visit in 1964?

RW: Very archaic. I was only 27. I had to negotiate a contract one day with these four Japanese guys. I had an interpreter and he said that to start with, just talk about bugger all. Promotion in Japan is an age issue and hence they couldn’t understand why this young boy – me – was meeting with them. Then I had a brainwave. I had one other English person, George – he was the catering manager for the film. He was about 60, grey hair and he had a pin-stripped suit. I told him that every so often I’d be asking him to come to a meeting and he’d have to pretend to be my boss. I told him not to ever say anything. I’d just look at him and he’d nod. I insisted on doing the talking. So the next time I had George sitting there in his pin-stripped suit.

So it worked?

RW: Yes, but what they could never understand….They’d draw up the contract there and then. They’d then pass it on to George who’d give it to me. You could see the puzzlement on their faces: “You mean the boy signs the contract?”

While making the two Bond films, did you get to know Sean Connery quite well?

RW: Yes, I got to know Sean very well. He was very professional. On ‘You Only Live Twice’ he was getting a bit pissed off with it all. When he arrived in Osaka Airport in Japan with masses of Japanese there to see him, Sean refused to put his toupee on. Broccoli and Saltzman didn’t like him appearing in front of the press bald. In terms of character, Sean was very professional, he doesn’t suffer fools gladly. 19 years later I worked again with Sean on ‘Indian Jones and the Last Crusade’. When he saw me on that film I was now the Producer. He said, “Oh, you’ve done well” and I said, “You haven’t done too badly yourself, Sean”.

And what were Cubby Broccoli and Harry Saltzman like as personalities?

RW: They were very different. Harry was far more severe. Cubby was very nice. After I did ‘You Only Live Twice’, I was location manager on ‘Billion Dollar Brain’ with Michael Caine and that was produced by Harry as well. He was the one who asked for me.

And, of course, ‘Billion Dollar Brain’ was directed by Ken Russell. He has a reputation as a very odd director.

RW: He’d say things like, “Don’t do what I say, do what I think”. I got on with him though.

Going back slightly, how did you get involved with Roman Polanski on ‘Repulsion’?

RW: Basically, I was the Second Assistant Director on ‘Repulsion’. I worked with the First Assistant whose name was Ted Sturgis – that was the only ever time I worked with him as second. The film was made by a company called Compton Cameo Films – it was run by Tony Tenser and Michael Klinger. That company’s claim to fame at the time was making soft-core porn – ‘Confessions of a Window Cleaner’ kind of thing. They embarked on ‘Repulsion’ which, in a sense, was a departure for them. This was a very different kettle of fish. They were also taking on a director who’d never worked in the English language before and didn’t speak much English at the time. I’d seen ‘Knife in the Water’ which was his previous film in Poland. He spoke fluent French which I did too. There was actually one more murder in the film which we shot but isn’t in the final movie. I’d need to see the film again to remember who was murdered. In the film, Catherine kills two people; when we shot it, she kills three. I think that was thought to be a little excessive. The set was quite claustrophobic. If you remember the rabbit in the film, that actually was rotting as we went along; it was pretty horrible. Polanski being the kind of auteur director he is – you know, he has his own mind – was taking a long time shooting. It wasn’t my fault because I wasn’t in charge of that. I went in the evening to my office to give the actors on call the next day their in-and-out times; two offices up was Tenser and Klinger. I’d hear the most screaming rows coming out of there between them and Polanski because he was going over schedule. It was quite possibly the most successful film they ever made.

I’m sure in was Tenser, yes?

RW: It was certainly a class act for them in a sense.

Repulsion was part of that ‘Apartment trilogy’, which included ‘Rosemary’s Baby’ and ‘The Tenant’. Was Polanski like as an individual?

RW: He was OK. He was very enthusiastic. I didn’t have a problem with him at all. Catherine Deneuve who was in the film was extremely young then – she was in her early twenties. What year was that film?

1965.

RW: So it was made in 64. She was a very contained actress. Strikingly beautiful. Bit of an ice maiden which people still say today. I also worked with her sister, Francois Dorleac who I worked with in ‘Billion Dollar Brain’, but she was sadly killed shortly after in a car crash.

Would you have liked to have worked with Polanski again?

RW: Well, yes. It’s an odd one really. My life just unfolded in the sense that one film finishes and you’re either out of work or someone has made you another offer. Polanski’s next film was ‘Cul-de-Sac’ with Donald Plesance and that was a very strange film. I worked with Donald Pleasance later on ‘You Only Live Twice’ when he played Blofeld. Thinking about it, Cul-de-Sac was also produced by Tenser’s production company.

A number of the films you’ve worked on had actors well known for heavy drinking and being difficult because of this. I’m thinking particularly here of Rex Harrison in The Yellow Rolls Royce and Ian Hendry in Repulsion. Did you have any experience of this?

RW: I had no problems with Ian Hendry or Rex Harrison. I know Ian Hendry had a terrible reputation. Rex Harrison’s was less well-known. He may well have been. He was a pompous arse.

I know he was abhorrent while making Dr Doolittle.

RW: Yes, I read a piece about that recently with interest. When we were making the film ‘Yellow Rolls Royce’ with Rex in 1964 – I had to deal with the actors as second assistant – he was pompous, but he put in a good performance. He had this thing about one side of his face photographed better than the other .. He did have a brilliant career.

Going back to Hendry, so no problems with him?

RW: No, no. I tell you who I also worked with who was a heavy drinker: Peter Finch. I remember he visited us on the film ‘Pumpkin Eater’ which was directed by Jack Clayton.

Who, of course, directed the Great Gatsby in the 1970s.

RW: He did. He also directed ‘The Innocents’ based on the Henry James story. Quite a brilliant film-maker.

Returning to the subject of troublesome actors, I presume most aren’t difficult?

RW: Yes. Generally actors are pros. They come on set and do a job. The audience by and large have a very strange view of the film industry; they only see it as premieres. It’s actually very hard work. Occasionally you get a Christian Bale type outburst.

What did you make of that incident? Did you ever experience anything like that?

RW: No, no, no. It strikes me that he’s got a bit of a problem because it’s a bit over-the-top. I can understand that someone may have walked into his eye-line. I thought it was the cameraman, but then reading about it, I think it was one of the lighting crew. The cameraman would normally be behind the camera. So I don’t know who it was, but whoever it was, I do understand that actors are hyped up and maybe it’s just a question of that. When you add it to that case where he was over for the premiere and, apparently, assaulted his mother and his sister in the Dorchester – maybe there is an anger-management problem coming along here.

Clearly his anger could be linked to all kinds of factors. For the Batman films he’s been very bulked up and maybe he’s taken the Stallone path of using certain muscle enhancers.

RW: You never know. I know Empire magazine has an interview with him so I’ll be interested to see what he says about that event.

I’ve read it and all he says is “No comment”. The journalist quickly moves on. I’d loved to have been a fly on the wall for that interview.

RW: I met him once. He was 13 years old then. He was doing ‘Empire of the Sun’. Spielberg was doing that while I was working on ‘Who Framed Roger Rabbit’?

Can we move on to ‘Star Wars’? How did your involvement with that film come about?

RW: I was doing this film down in Mexico – ‘Wrath of God’ – with Robert Mitchum, Rita Heyworth and Frank Langella.

Frank later played Dracula in 1979. He was very good in the role.

RW: Yes, that’s right. Anyway, this was an American movie and I was a British Production Manager and wasn’t a member of the Producers Guild of America. The only reason I could do the film was because it was entirely shot in Mexico. Once we’d finished shooting, I went to LA just to wrap up and hand over. I went to MGM studios where I had an office and I got a call from someone who’d heard that there was an English Production Manager around. They wanted to come and talk to me about shooting in England. The guy who came to see was Gary Kurtz who would become the Producer of ‘Star Wars’. This was just before Gary was to work with Lucas on ‘American Graffiti’ in 1972 . Anyway, I finish wrapping up and don’t think anymore about it. Two years later I’m working on a film in Greece and I get a call from the head of Fox in England. He told me that Gary Kurtz was asking to see me. So I flew back from Greece and went into Twentieth Century Fox in Soho Square and I meet Gary again. Then I possibly returned to Greece the next day, then came back again and that’s when I discovered it was ‘Star Wars’. So my involvement with ‘Star Wars’ started 1975, September time but we still hadn’t got a green light for the film.

Fox weren’t very supportive of the movie, were they?

RW: No. The only supportive person was Alan Ladd who was working for Fox at the time. We didn’t get our green light until after Christmas. We had a budget of around $12 million dollars and our shooting schedule was 12 weeks.

That’s very little time.

RW: Oh god, it was a scramble. We didn’t have a Second Unit operating until the last three weeks. Gary eventually formed a Second Unit and filmed things such as Princess Lea’s holograph and things like that. I did the Third Unit – I did the close-up of R2-D2’s leg coming out. The technology for R2 was very primitive at the time; for example, it could only turn its head when Kenny Baker was inside. When we finished shooting, ILM who were based in a suburb of LA at that time, took over for post-production. They used Motion Control which had never been used before. When you look at the film’s opening with the Star Destroyer, that was the first time Motion Control had been used which meant we could do all kinds of moves. That was so different from 2001. In that film everything was a static frame. We couldn’t do any shots of movement, whereas with Motion Control you could; hence, that opening of the first ‘Star Wars’ (as an aside it was originally called ‘The Star Wars’) was very impressive.

The impression I get from reading about the making of Star Wars is that much of the crew didn’t have much faith in the film, while it was being made.

RW: I thought it would do quite well, but more in line with how the Bond films were performing.

And the sets were very impressive, particularly at a time when location shooting had made sound stages rather unfashionable.

RW: They were very impressive.

A bit of a sad question, but was there anything actually inside the Millennium Falcon?

RW: Well, we had an exterior set and an interior set. Because George had always said this film was part of a trilogy, we took things like the Millennium Falcon set – anything which we might use again – and did what’s called pack-striking. That means you take a set apart with care, put it into pieces and put those into containers. We kept anything we possibly could: costumes, bit of set and so on.

Because George had always said the film was part of a trilogy?

RW: Yes. We thought those sets would be very useful if there ever was a sequel which, of course, there was.

What kind of person was George Lucas?

RW: George is so shy. Superb editor.

Where were you when ‘Star Wars’ became such a huge hit?

RW: Well, after ‘Star Wars’, I then went to Afghanistan of all places to do this film, ‘Meetings with Remarkable Men’. Terence Stamp was in that. I was in the middle of Afghanistan when ‘Star Wars’ opened. The only way I kept in contact with the outside world, besides dodgy short-wave radio, was by buying Time and Newsweek. One day, I opened it and there were several colour pages on ‘Star Wars’ and suddenly, for the first time, I knew it had been incredibly successful.

When did your involvement with ‘Empire Strikes Back’ begin?

RW: 1978. What was very different to ‘Star Wars’ was that I had about a year’s prep on ‘Empire’ – locations to find and so on so that we could get it together properly. For example, I chose Norway to stand in for the ice planet of Hoth.

Did you encounter any problems on ‘Empire’?

RW: Well, it did go over schedule and budget. But I do think it’s the best film of the three. While we were doing some blue screen work at the end of ‘Empire’, George came up to me with a script and it was ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’. I took it away to read and thought it a very busy script. I was told it was going to be directed by Steven Spielberg.

Had you met Spielberg at this point?

RW: No. I was taken to meet Steven by Frank Marshall who was Producer on ‘Raiders’; when I met him Steven was doing post-preview edits on the film ’1941′ , a film that was a disaster for him. Understandably I was a little anxious working with Spielberg because that film had not gone well; it had seriously gone over budget. Once I was officially involved with Raiders I did the thing I always do first, I scheduled the film. I laid it out over 23 weeks. When I showed it to Steven he said he was going to do it in 17 weeks. That made me even more worried, but he managed to shoot it in only 15 weeks. In fact, we were two weeks under schedule which was something I’d never experienced before. That’s unheard of. Both Steven and George told Paramount – who funded the picture – to take out a full-page advert in the trade papers thanking the cast and crew for finishing the film two weeks earlier than planned.

After the problems with ’1941′, that makes Steven sound like an incredibly efficient director. Tell me about working with Steven Spielberg.

RW: He was a brilliant director. He’s a natural director. He was very challenging. When filming a really complex shot take one, he’d then say, “Print”, then move on. I’d say, “Hang on a minute, Steven. We always do a second one in case there’s a scratch on the negative, a hair in the gate” etc. He said, “No, move on”.

So he was quite a risk taker.

RW: In a sense, yes and in a sense, no. He worked so quickly. The way he shot it, that energy is in the film.

What followed Raiders?

RW: Then I returned to work on ‘Return of the Jedi’.

You were Co-Producer on that film, weren’t you?

RW: Yes. And then after that film George made me producer of ‘Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom’.

That must have been amazing moment.

RW: It was.

Moving back to Jedi, you were in it, albeit briefly.

RW: Yes, I played AT-ST driver Lt. Watts. I was the only character in ‘Star Wars’ to be called by his own name and his own rank (because I’d be in the army). I’m only in it for a second. I’m killed by Chewbacca.

Is that the film’s director, Richard Marquand, with you in the vehicle?

RW: Yes. I don’t know if you know, but my half-brother is Boba Fett. Originally the costume was white; it was going to be a super stormtrooper. Anyway, it eventually was altered and we needed someone to play the part of this bounty hunter. I phoned him up and told him that if the suit fit, he could have the part. And it did! That was back in 1979 and he’s still doing Star Wars conventions. We never expected that character to be so popular with the fans.

Moving on to ‘Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom’, I’ve read that Harrison Ford was suddenly pulled out of the shoot.

RW: Yes, we lost Harrison for eight weeks because of a disc problem, but we kept going for six. Steven was prepared to go into scenes we hadn’t yet started using a double for Harrison.

Who was the double?

RW: Vic Armstrong, who was our stunt co-ordinaor. He was a brilliant double. You could almost hold him full figure. You couldn’t go in close, but Steven shot over his shoulder and in long shot. I don’t know of another director who could do that.

As Producer, you must have been very stressed during those weeks that Harrison was away recuperating from a slip disc. I presume there was the worry that he might not have been coming back.

RW: One has to live in hope. We’re technically on an insurance claim. With Harrison gone, I said to Steven that we should close today. He wanted to continue. So we accelerated the dance sequence at the start of the film which Harrison wasn’t in. The choreographer moaned like hell when I said we needed that scene ready.

It’s a very Busby Berkley scene. How did you re-schedule the film while Harrison was recovering?

RW: We decided to go as far as we could and then I did a schedule for when Harrison came back. We had a two week drop. We went to California and shot some Second Unit during that time. I’d never done a schedule like that before. I was only one day out so I was really pleased. The insurance claim, had we closed the day of – which was our right – would have been about $3,000,000 dollars. It was actually just under $1,000,000 dollars. The insurance broker who came was not the normal one I dealt with who was really good. This other guy went through everything and I said to him, “I’ve just saved you $2,000,000 dollars”.

Unlike the first Indy film, the ‘Temple of Doom’ didn’t get very good reviews by many critics.

RW: No, I think they thought it was too dark. I liked it.

You were also producer on ‘Who Framed Roger Rabbit’, but that was a very stressful film for you, wasn’t it?

RW: Yes, very stressful. There were three executive producers and they all buggered off to do ‘Empire of the Sun’ leaving Bob and I. It was the most difficult film I ever made. All the animation was hand painted. We also broke all the rules mixing live action and animation.

I presumed the actors struggled as well.

RW: Yes. And we tested all kinds of people for Bob Hoskin’s character, Eddie Valiant. Gene Hackman really wanted the part. We offered the role to Paul Newman and he was offended. We tested Bob and he was absolutely brilliant. Bob acted to a life-size Roger Rabbit which we had on set just to show where he would be. Charles Fleischer, who was the voice of Roger, was off-set doing the lines. He was a stand-up.

Wasn’t some of the filming done in London?

RW: Yes. We shot a bit of LA (where the film is set) opposite the BBC. It was March and I was thinking, “Christ, I’ve got to make this look like summer”. We got some palm trees which we got from the same place that Kubrick got his for ‘Full Metal Jacket’. We got this place all set up and the morning was brilliant. It was completely clear, but cold because it had been cold that night. The problem was breath and there are ways you can deal with this. If you’ve got breath and you want to get rid of it, you have the actors suck ice. If you want breath, you have them sip a hot drink and you get breath. If you look at that scene, the guy playing the lieutenant in that with Bob Hoskins – Rick LeParmentier – we couldn’t get rid of his breath completely so, if you look at it, he’s smoking a cigarette so you never know.

Very film noir smoking a cigarette.

RW: Oh extremely. Anyway, that’s why he was smoking. They’re some of the tricks of the trade.

You said the shoot was stressful.

RW: The film had a $30 million dollar budget and it ended up costing $50 million dollars. I must say that most of the over spend was because of the animation which I didn’t budget. The film took two and half years to make unlike ‘Star Wars’ which took two. That extra six months was for the animation and all of that. I was a million dollars over on the first day of shooting. It was a nightmare. I remember at the end of the first days shooting Bob said to me, “We’re dying on the vine”. But we got through and the film made a lot of money.

After ‘Who Framed Roger Rabbit’ you then produced ‘Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade’.

RW: Yes.

After that film was there any offer for working on further TV and cinema projects with the Indy character?

RW: Well, George was going into the young Indiana television series. I’ve never done television. It’s a very different medium. Very different typo. Generally speaking, slightly different crew. I didn’t know anything about it so I decided that it was time to go.

Are you still in contact with George?

RW: Oh yeah, on and off. I haven’t seen him for awhile. Next time I’m out in California, I’ll go out to his ranch to say hello.

Looking through your CV, I notice that you were executive producer on the film ‘Labyrinth’ which George Lucas produced.

RW: Jim Henson had written the script and he did ask me to produce it. I couldn’t because I was busy with something. Eventually to get the film going financially, it became a Lucasfilm with Henson and that’s when I now became involved because, at that time, I was Vice President of European Production for Lucasfilm – that was actually the same thing which brought me to ‘Roger Rabbit’. So I found myself on it, but not on it. I wasn’t there all the time. I used to go on set and watch a bit of shooting. I used to look at the dailies (rushes in the old days) and talk to Jim or whatever because I was like the Lucasfilm rep.

That title must have given you a very high status in the industry.

RW: Well yeah, but it didn’t mean a great deal. It was just that they asked me to do it and I said absolutely. And they paid me and gave me an office at Elstree Studios which they paid for. I should point out that George also wanted me to do the movie ‘Willow’ directed by Ron Howard.

The film with Val Kilmer?

RW: Yes. I eventually found him a producer and I did ‘Roger’ instead.

That was lucky.

RW: Yes, because ‘Willow’ was actually a flop. I suppose I got lucky really because ‘Roger Rabbit’ was such a hit.

Going back to Labyrinth, what was Jim Henson like?

RW: He was lovely. I went to his memorial service at St. Paul’s Cathedral. There was Big Bird walking around which was really strange. Jim died very suddenly. My involvement with Henson had come through ‘Empire Strikes Back’ with Yoda. As good fortune would have it, across the road from Elstree Studios where we were shooting, was another studio which used to be called The British National – it was then owned by ATV and that was where they made ‘The Muppet Show’. I could walk across the street to the studio.

RW: Yes, Mark Hamill was in it and Anthony Daniels, Peter Mayhew, Kenny Baker. Therefore, we were in direct liason with them.

As The Muppet Show was being made across the road, did you ever go and watch them filming the programme?

RW: Oh yes, and so did my kids.

Your children must have the most amazing memories or was it very normalised for them?

RW: It was very normalised because they grew up with it. In terms of the films, I didn’t have the children hanging around the studio all the time. They didn’t know anything else. I’ve got a picture of my youngest son, aged about eleven, and his friend on that huge set at the start of Return of the Jedi’. You can see Vadar’s shuttle which has just landed in the Death Star docking bay. For my youngest son’s birthday party, Anthony Daniels came along one day – he didn’t have the whole outfit but he did have a golden glove on. It’s good to have those things.

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