Marcia Lucas, who won an Oscar as editor of the original 1977 Star Wars and was part of a group of women whose editing was essential to film’s “New Hollywood” era, has died, a lawyer for her family said on Friday. She was 80, per the AP. Lucas, who was married to Star Wars creator George Lucas from 1969 to 1983, died on Wednesday from metastatic cancer, according to attorney Deidre Von Rock. Lucas died in Rancho Mirage, California, surrounded by loved ones, per Von Rock. Marcia Lucas was also the editor on 1983’s Return of the Jedi and the pre-Star Wars George Lucas-directed films THX 1138 and American Graffiti. She was also part of the editing team for director Martin Scorsese’s 1970s films Taxi Driver, Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, and New York, New York.
Editor was a rare senior creative position where a woman could find a foothold in Hollywood. Marcia Lucas became one of several women whose work in the editing chair made sense of the work of the overwhelmingly male directors of the “New Hollywood” of the late 1960s through the early 1980s, including Dede Allen, editor of Bonnie and Clyde and Dog Day Afternoon; Verna Fields, editor of Paper Moon and Jaws; and Thelma Schoonmaker, editor of most of Scorsese’s films, starting with 1980’s Raging Bull. Lucas was often called the unsung hero of Star Wars, the original film that after sequels, prequels, and spinoffs has come to be known by its subtitle, “A New Hope.”
Lucas convinced her then-husband that he should have Obi-Wan Kenobi, played by Alec Guinness, die in his lightsaber battle with Darth Vader and become a spirit guide to Mark Hamill’s Luke Skywalker. She also had to make sense of raw footage that could’ve been a mess in the wrong hands, including the climactic rebel attack on the Death Star, which George Lucas once called an “extremely complex” endeavor. Lucas was born Marcia Griffin in Modesto, California, shortly after the end of World War II. She moved to Los Angeles with her mother after her parents divorced when she was a small child. She eventually began working as a film librarian and moved into working as an editor on commercials, trailers, and promotional films.
Lucas was an assistant editor on the 1968 documentary Journey to the Pacific for Fields, who also hired George Lucas, then a film student at the University of Southern California. The couple became engaged soon after. Their marriage would essentially end in 1982, but they kept their divorce under wraps until after the release of Return of the Jedi in 1983. Marcia Lucas was then married to Tom Rodrigues, a production manager at the Skywalker Ranch production center, from 1983 to 1993. She’s survived by her daughters, Amanda Lucas and Amy Soper, and three grandchildren. “Her influence on film is indelible, but those who knew her best will remember the way she made life feel more vivid, more beautiful, more fun, and more full of love,” a family statement said.
