I Am C-3PO--The Inside Story Read online

  I had, at last, been included in publicity events in Los Angeles. The Empire Strikes Back was madly awaited by the millions of fans across the planet. No doubt, their appetite was stimulated by seeing my name actually on the poster – a gesture from Lucasfilm that they did indeed acknowledge my participation in the film.

  I was pleased and excited to feel a part of it all. A mood heightened by the lavishness of my accommodation. And now, after my few days in my luxurious, newly renovated hotel suite, I was flying to Washington for the premiere screening, joining all the other members of the cast. It was all going so well. Mid-flight, I began to feel quite strange. Altitude? Champagne? I checked in to the fabled Watergate Hotel. Another gorgeous suite, but I wasn’t in the mood. I was feeling stranger. I phoned down. They found me a doctor.

  I had flu. Not a cold. Real flu. Influenza. But what about this red mark on my foot? The medic said it was nothing, a small puncture. I must have trodden on something sharp as I padded, barefoot, around my newly glamorised suite in LA. Nothing to worry about.

  I slept.

  I called him back the next morning. Urgently. He arrived and was so shocked at what he saw, that he had them drag me out of bed and wheel me to his own car. No time for an ambulance then. We arrived at a hospital. He grabbed a wheelchair and rushed me forward. I learned later that no one had ever seen a doctor push a patient in a wheelchair before, so this must be serious – porters did menial tasks like that. We reached Reception. Everything stopped. Credit card? Fortunately Sid Ganis, Lucasfilm’s Senior Vice President, had arrived with concern and the company’s card to hand. It would not be the last time he and the card would come to my rescue. Within minutes I was in a private room, in a bed, an intravenous drip spliced into my hand. The flu had weakened my system. The tiny wound had become infected. I had developed blood poisoning. I was in shock.

  INT. Hoth – ECHO BASE – Medical Center

  No. This was real.

  INT. WASHINGTON – SIBLEY MEMORIAL HOSPITAL – ROOM 25 – DAY

  I was still in bed when everyone else was sitting in their seats at the premiere. The drugs were killing off the infection but I was so sad. Time passed in mournful thoughts at what I was missing. Instead of dressing in a smart premiere outfit, I was wearing two short daisy-covered nighties for modesty; one split at the front, covered by the other, split up the back. I was sitting up against the rumpled pillows, self-pitying tears wetting my cheeks. It seems antibiotics can cause depression. Also – I was depressed.

  Somehow, word of my baleful situation got out. The door quietly opened. Four visitors walked in. These were the only people I’d seen here who were not dressed in white. Complete strangers they may have been but they were also kind and thoughtful and generous Star Wars fans. I must have been quite a sight – bed-haired, teary-faced, daisy-covered, attached to a drip. But they were smiling. Knowing I had a famously sweet tooth, they had brought me a big chocolate cake, to cheer me up. They gave me reason to dry my eyes. Such unexpected, thoughtful kindness. A week later, I returned to London. All the festivities had ended. I had missed everything. But I had survived.

  And there would be other premieres.

  34 Christmas

  It wasn’t my idea. And a lot of people loved it. Christmas In The Stars.

  1980 – I was rehearsing a stage production in a church hall in London. It was Friday night and we finished around six. I was a little anxious. Tomorrow I was flying to New York but had to be back for Monday morning rehearsals. Even travelling by Concorde, it was going to be a squeeze. Concorde – wow. But it was a very early taxi to Heathrow the next morning.

  I gazed out of the window, in the very exclusive lounge. The stunning plane was parked right outside and pointing its elegant nose straight at me, personally. It was beautiful, so beautiful, and slender – inside, too. It was a different sort of squeeze from the one that worried me about getting back for rehearsals. The cabin was really quite slim. Being that way myself, it didn’t concern me but there were some businessmen who would be less comfortable than me on the short flight. Short, because we’d be flying at twice the speed of sound. Sadly, that meant that the luxurious food service was over too soon. But what a treat.

  Another treat – being met by one of the producers. Bizarrely, due to the time zone, I had arrived before I’d taken off; a paradox that rather added to this out-of-time experience. Another glamorous touch came as we sat in the back of a limo and she poured champagne into a saucer glass. It was all so luxurious – even after the back axle bounced roughly over a rut in the road and I snapped the stem off my dainty glass. I sipped carefully till we arrived at the mid-town studio. Life was not usually like this. But now I had to do some work.

  Christmas In The Stars had been in pre-production for months. It was riding off the huge popularity of Meco’s Galactic Funk. Meco was a recording artist who had released a disco version of John Williams’ iconic compositions. It was great but wasn’t an official tie-in with Lucasfilm. The cover was all sorts of artwork, but nothing from Star Wars itself. This time the disc would be official.

  The Robert Stigwood Organisation was famed in the music industry and RSO Records were producing this vinyl record album. It was going to celebrate two great entities coming together – Christmas and Star Wars. Maybe three entities, since it was Jon Bon Jovi’s debut as a singer.

  I was used to being in recording studios and this was no different, except that I usually arrived by bus. We settled in and I put on the headphones that would play pre-made music in my head. No massed musicians around me. They’d done their thing earlier. Throughout the day, I would plunge through the musical numbers by myself.

  “Bells, Bells, Bells”.

  “Christmas In The Stars”.

  “The Odds Against Christmas”.

  Such innocent pieces. The latter was particularly apt, since Empire had been released earlier that year. Threepio’s obsession with irrelevant statistics had been one of the main laughs. Of course, the odds against “Christmas being Christmas” were three hundred and sixty–five to one. But there was also some fairly batty stuff about what else December the twenty-fifth could have heralded – the invention of the wheel, perhaps? Really? But the lines I spoke, or half sang – sprechgesang being the great helper to the vocally challenged like me – were notable for another reason.

  It was the first time real-world planet Earth was mixing its celebrations, or anything else, with characters from another galaxy. Threepio and Artoo were part of a droid team making toys for S. Claus in an unnamed location somewhere in space. Strange, as far as it went, but George Lucas had been very clear that Christian dogma could not sit alongside the Force. Yoda, in particular, could only warmly warble rather sentimental generalities about the time of year and goodwill to all things.

  My thoughts were concentrated on the pages of lyrics, as I battled through the day. I finally ran out of puff around six that evening. They drove me to the luxurious Plaza Hotel, where I glanced around the suite and immediately sank into bed and sleep. It was after midnight, my time.

  I woke up at two in the morning, New York time. But I felt great. I stared out at Central Park, surprised at the amount of nightlife going on outside – the lives of others. I went over the remaining words in my script. I did it again. I wandered about the suite – bored. I went downstairs. The front desk suddenly remembered that they’d forgotten to give me the large floral display, gifted to me from RSO. A generous gesture – just what I wanted for the remains of my one night in Manhattan. So the hours wore on in their mix of opulent loneliness. But eventually the sky lightened and it was time to pack and go. The team had all agreed to be back at work unusually early that Sunday morning. I had a plane to catch. We sped through the day, working on different pieces in the album.

  There was even a magical sighting for the golden droid – a sleigh with eight reindeer hauling across the sky. Poor S. Claus would never jump to l
ight speed that way, but I began to feel quite Christmassy. And then it was over.

  I sat alone in the back of a limo to Kennedy airport, where I boarded that most beautiful plane. I lived like the elite again, for a few hours, fast but not at light speed either. Then I was safe home once more. I had got away with the madcap trip. Monday morning, I was on the bus to work, back to normal, rehearsing the play. But the real drama was happening in New York.

  Production was completed, with the addition of various numbers that did not feature Threepio in sing-speak mode. It might have been an intergalactic mash-up too far, to have him enquiring, “What can you get a Wookiee for Christmas, when he already owns a comb?” So Maury Yeston sang my favourite piece from the album. And there were several other fun numbers, backed by a choir of fifty school children. Maury had written most of the lyrics and music and would eventually become a famed musical composer on Broadway.

  The record was released, in spite of RSO going out of business at that moment. It wasn’t my problem but it meant that this musical masterpiece arrived in the record stores without the usual marketing fanfares. The sales were excellent but with RSO gone, there wasn’t going to be another issue. Until it was eventually let out again on CD, many years later. But it remains a loved curiosity for enduring Star Wars fans. For many of them, it has become a ritual part of the Holiday Season, playing in the background as gift wrappings are ripped apart, or another glass is sipped.

  Actually, a glass or two probably makes it all sound rather better.

  35 blind

  Sand storms normally happen outside.

  Ours would be at Elstree studios. Inside Stage Two, on day one of principal photography on Revenge of the Jedi – a last-minute name change would be forthcoming. But yes, they were shooting another sequel and, yes, I was back again in the gold suit.

  The sandy painted walls blended in with the tons of real sand spread across the floor. In one corner stood the Falcon. On the far side of the stage were huddled rows of dustbins, filled with sand and powder. Silver tubes snaked upward, to vent themselves in front of a curtain of propeller blades, looking like an antique air force; their blades powerful enough to vacuum the binned debris up and out.

  I was disconcerted to see Harrison and Mark and Carrie being heavily draped, goggled and protected from the approaching onslaught. I wondered if the little strip of gauze they had stuck inside my mask would work for me.

  All we had to do was walk towards the Falcon’s ramp. Two cameras. Camera A, by the Falcon and Camera B, way off for a wide shot.

  EXT. TATOOINE – DESERT – DAY

  START THE FANS!

  ROLL CAMERAS A AND B!

  That was the last I heard – apart from the appalling roar of the propellers. The sound was overwhelming. I could see that the others had begun to move off, as rehearsed in quieter times. I set out after them. I wasn’t fast enough – I’d lost them. I began to search. The air was solid with noise and thick with the choking junk, spewing out of the tubes. Earth and sky merged into one mass of sensory deprivation. I was blindly edging along in my suit in the dense, sandy fog, confused by the din. My eyes blurred over. I blew my breath upwards to try to clear the condensation on the plastic gels they had stuck over the eyeholes. It bounced my breath off the interior of the mask and onto the gels. It helped, a little. The noise still pounded but I could see better. I could see B Camera, surprisingly, right in front of me. Its deafened clapper-loader was kneeling before the lens, still waiting to mark his slate, as disorientated as I was. I never saw the rock – not even after I had careened over it and lay pancaked on the sand. The noise whirred to a stop.

  Silence – apart from the coughing. They stood me up. I was okay. The scene wasn’t. It was cut.

  36 beep

  We landed somewhere in the rocky desert terrain.

  It had been a fun flight in a twin-engine eight-seater. George’s good mood only spoilt by the pink-iced cake in his packed lunch. I salvaged the situation by swapping it for my chocolate one – George likes chocolate.

  We eventually landed and checked in to the Fire Creek Motel, as I remember. It was basic. Very basic. There was no television reception and the food was clearly not memorable at all. But there was a gift shop. George jokingly bought me a souvenir bill-fold of orange hide – a bucking bronco was crudely branded into the cheap suede surface, with the words, “My Little Buckaroo”. Nice. I opened it. It was empty. We went to work.

  They put the camera in a cave, shooting outwards. I stood outside, with the rock vista stretching out to the horizon behind me. Threepio was on guard. Supposedly, Luke would be in the cave itself, constructing a new lightsaber. He’d lost his original blade at about the same time as he lost his hand. Ultimately the scenes would hit the cutting-room floor and Artoo would prove to have had a new saber all the time – but we weren’t to know that yet. We got the shot and moved on. Fast. The shadows were lengthening, which would give the next scene an atmospheric quality. However, it meant the day was coming to an end. No one wanted to spend an extra night at the motel, so everyone in the tiny crew pitched in and carried. We rushed to get the shot.

  Several times, Artoo went off-piste, merrily ploughing a completely different path from the one David Schaefer was struggling to maintain with his remote control. Apparently, the little droid was picking up strong radio signals, emanating from Edwards Air Force Base. We just had to keep doing it over and over, as the shadows grew longer. Part of ILM’s genius team, David had been my colleague on various live adventures round the planet. Such events were scary, in that they couldn’t be edited. If something went wrong, you had to deal with it in front of the audience. Fortunately, with David’s skill, that never happened. Filming was different. You could do things again and again.

  Earlier, the crew had constructed a hide for the camera. I watched – fascinated. It had a sheet-glass window, a portion of which was being blacked out. They explained that the painted area would cover a part of the film stock. Later, they would expose that area of the film to a matte painting of the palace itself, back at ILM. For now, the clear glass would allow the camera to film only me and Artoo, walking away on our mission.

  It had taken a while to set the whole thing up and I grabbed the opportunity to rehearse walking up the track – searching out any rock or pothole that could send me tumbling. Artoo was still in his packing case.

  I would just pretend, as usual.

  EXT. TATOOINE – ROAD TO JABBA’S PALACE

  ACTION!

  “Of course I am worried. And you should be, too. Lando Calrissian and poor Chewbacca never returned from this awful place.”

  Then. Surprisingly. Behind me.

  “Beep-beep. Beep-beep. Beep-beep.”

  It had taken nearly three movies to get to this point. George was following me on the path. Squatting on his haunches, waddling along, making very silly Artoo sounds.

  We got the shot. We didn’t have to spend an extra night.

  It was the happiest day.

  37 caged

  I had never been a fan of Tunisia, as planet Tatooine. Well, I got my comeuppance in Revenge.

  October 1982.

  I landed at the dusty aerodrome in Yuma, Arizona. Mark had been concerned about how to avoid the crush of fans and paparazzi. The place was deserted. But hot. A short drive got me to the Stardust Hotel. I was amused – Robert Watts had teased me since our first days together on A New Hope. Here he was for his third stint on Star Wars, now promoted to the role of co-producer. I was soon to be promoted, too – to God of the Ewoks. But basically I was still Threepio underneath it all. Back in the early days, Robert had endearingly nicknamed me “Stardust”, so I might have assumed the inn was called after me. It wasn’t. It had been around a lot longer than me and rather looked it.

  Yuma itself seemed to be a mile of neon-bright fast food outlets, stuck together. Burgers and nuggets were the thing �
� vegetables were fries. Fortunately, we were fed on the set. And the set was in a vast wire cage, plonked in the desert sands. This was where we were filming Blue Harvest – Horror Beyond Imagination. The spoof title was intended to kid the townsfolk into believing that this was not a Star Wars shoot. Everything to do with the production was liveried in blue and white lettering – the vehicles, hats, jackets, T-shirts, waterproofs and call-sheets all meticulously badged with a fake identity. This, in an effort to keep location costs down, and to allow the production to go ahead discreetly. Fat chance.

  It was a half-hour drive out of town, off the main road and through the dunes. What a visual treat, to pass the rippled sand banks that constantly changed in the sunlight and shadows. As the terrain flattened, there was the set. And there was the hill. It transpired that the former had been built without any regard for the crowds who populated the latter. The giant slope was a mecca for dune-buggy enthusiasts. They would zoom noisily down and up again, all through our shoot. Others sat on the top with their telephoto lenses, snapping away at the mysteries below. And indeed, it did appear a strange construction.

  It looked rather sinister, with its high perimeter fencing – as if a crazy border containment camp. Its extraordinary centrepiece was fringed with trucks and transits and security guards. To keep ourselves amused in the long periods of waiting around, Mark and I would wander out of our air-conditioned mobile homes to chat with the sightseers, peeping politely through our perimeter. We faced each other through the chain-link mesh. Our new acquaintances seemed fascinated by what we were up to. Especially, they wanted to know why they had seen a very recognisable gold robot in this horror film. So much for secrecy. It was fun and felt like being in a zoo, though I wasn’t sure which of us was the exhibit.