Robert Blalack, one of Lucasfilm’s original employees — and a founder of Industrial Light and Magic (ILM) — has tragically passed away from cancer complications at age 73.
[Oscar winner] Blalack died Wednesday of cancer at his home in Paris, his wife, writer Caroline Charron-Blalack, told The Hollywood Reporter.
Blalack also shared an Emmy for his VFX work on The Day After, the 1983 ABC telefilm about a nuclear war between the U.S. and Soviet Union that drew 100 million viewers and was the highest-rated TV movie in history at the time.
The visual effects guru won an Academy Award for his work on the first Star Wars movie and once shared that starting ILM from scratch while production was ongoing was like “was like jumping out of a plane and stitching up the parachute during free fall.”
Luke Skywalker [Mark Hamill] begins a journey that will change the galaxy in Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope. Nineteen years after the formation of the Empire, Luke is thrust into the struggle of the Rebel Alliance when he meets Obi-Wan Kenobi [Alec Guinness], who has lived for years in seclusion on the desert planet of Tatooine. Obi-Wan begins Luke’s Jedi training as Luke joins him on a daring mission to rescue the beautiful Rebel leader Princess Leia [Carrie Fisher] from the clutches of Darth Vader and the evil Empire.
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Credit: Lucasfilm
