Lucas had American Graffiti and some other even less well-known movies to his name, but was probably not well-known in the UK. Guiness was a very well-known British actor with a long and distinguished career. A bit past his prime in the mid-1970s, I suppose, but still out of Lucas’s league. Or not?
Was it all about the money? The chance to try his hand at science fiction? Did Guiness have any inkling as to what a huge hit Star Wars would become? Does anyone know the behind-the-scenes story of how Guiness was wooed and landed for the iconic role of Obi-Wan Kenobi?
I don’t think it was much more than that he needed the money and thought the filmwould be successful. That’s also why he negotiated (and got) backend points.
As I heard it, Guiness was around, having just completed Murder by Death, and Star Wars was something he could do pretty quickly and easily.
I’m sure he was the “prestige” name that helped sell the product, one of the few Big Names in a cast of Relative Unknowns (although James Earl Jones and Peter Cushing were in there, too), like Walter Pigeon was for Forbidden Planet.
Yes, he was – his name was listed in the closing credits. He didn’t pull a Bill Murray (“Tootsie”) or a Darren mcGavin (}The Natural") and not let his name be listed.
I heard it was Alec Guiness who convinced Lucas to kill off his character so it would be more powerful and meaningful, but the truth was Guiness couldn’t bear speaking anymore of Lucas’ cheesy dialogue.
Okay, I just checked the Star Wars trivia page at iMDB and found this:
But I swear that I saw a credit for Jones in the first showing of Star Wars. And he wasn’t an “up and coming” actor – he was well-known in 1977, having starred in the acclaimed The Great White Hopeseven years earlier, and having acted in movies since 1963.
In one of the few interviews I’ve ever read where Guinness referred to the role (I can’t provide a cite but I swear I read it), Guinness said that he had just read of John Carradine, an actor he admired on stage, accepting the lead in Vampire Hookers (a movie that was released in 1978 but sat on the shelf for a couple of years and so is pre STAR WARS). With British taxes being terrible, stage work paying very little compared to film, and his last few films either having been the lead in low budget vehicles (Hitler: the Last Ten Days= a movie I liked but critics didn’t) or supporting roles in big budget films (Murder by Death, Scrooge) or big roles in box office bombs (including the notoriously disastrous Cromwell) he was very much afraid of not being able to retire in comfort. So, money.
Lucas wanted Guinness because he (as well as his mentor/former employer Francis Ford Coppola) was a huge fan of Bridge on the River Kwai and most of Guinness’s other David Lean collaborations. (Lean is admired by filmgoers of course but he seems to be nothing short of a god to filmmakers.) Plus, the rest of the cast (minus Cushing, who had already started doing low budget horror flicks) was mostly unknown (Harrison Ford had lots of credits but he was still doing cabinet work even after Graffiti for extra cash), so an Oscar winning British knight was a great link to legitimacy.
I think what pissed Guinness off the most was that his contract required him to do the sequels. He was notoriously bitchy on the set of Empire Strikes Back (“I hate that line. Make the green puppet thing say it!”) and seemed like a real ass in interviews when his most famous role and lucrative role (one that I’m guessing paid him several times what all of his David Lean roles together paid him) was brought up, which I never understood.
My favorite memory of Guinness was when he was on David Letterman in the early 1990s to promote his autobiography. He was coming across as pompous and became moreso when Letterman asked “Can you give the audience something they will always remember and say the line?” The audience went absolutely wild with applause and cheering and Guinness shook his head, but when Letterman would not let up he finally gave him an “eat shit and die” look (as if Letterman had asked him to I Got You Babe with Sonny Bono) but finally he said, very resignedly, “May the Force Be With You”. The audience of course gave one of the most explosive cheering ovations in its history, Sir Alec clearly was not appreciative or amused, and when they quieted down Letterman responded: “Yeah, thanks for that Alex, but that wasn’t the line I was talking about. I meant the one from Hitler the Last Ten Days…”
It was, if only to me, Letterman’s finest moment, and the only time I ever heard Guinness say that line outside of the movies.
I don’t think Harrison Ford is too fond of the Star Wars films either. He seems to distance himself from them and never really had anything good to say about them besides how “suprised” he was at their success.
I think his general attitude was “I’m Alec Guiness. I’ve done Shakespearean theater with Gielgud and Olivier. I’m one of the most prestigeous British theater actors of my generation. I’m probably the most famous British theater character actors, ever. I’ve been in all sorts of classic, deservedly famous films. I was in Kind Hearts and Coronets, where I played 8 seperate roles. I was in the Bridge on the River Kwai. I won an Oscar for that, even. I was in Lawrence of Arabia, Doctor Zhivago. But nobody remembers any of that. All I’m known for…all I’ll be remembered for, is a bit part in a piece of crap movie that I took because I needed the cash.”
I’d like a cite for this, because my understanding was that he didn’t hate either at first, but he did come to hate the enormous success they had because they threatened to, as Captain Amazing so adroitly put it, diminish his entire career to a single not-all-that-distinguished part.
If your anecdote is true, than “Letterman’s finest moment” certainly makes him sound like a grade-A jerkoff.
“Hmmm, acting legend who rarely does interviews agrees to be on my show. I know! Why don’t I badger him mercilessly to do the one thing everybody knows he absolutely hates! Would could possibly be more respectful than that?” :rolleyes:
Supposedly, when the locals thought George was a nut, Guiness defended him and predicted that he’d probably become quite the success someday.
As for asking Obi-Wan to be killed off, another version I heard is that Lucas decided to kill him off because he really didn’t have anything to do the rest of the film. And when Guiness first heard about it, he was seriously pissed. I think it was Harrison Ford who wanted Han to be killed off in the second film.
In an interview with Mark Hamill, he said that Guiness was a perfect gentlemen. At one point, when Hamill kept calling him “Sir Alec”, Guiness slapped him lightly on the face and said, “My dear boy, I wish to be known by my name, not my accolade.”
I’m guessing that it was only later on, as he became known only as “Obi-Wan”, that he began to hate the films.
However, I don’t think he was the charmer that Peter Cushing was said to be. I’ve heard that in complete contrast to his character, Cushing was a total sweetheart in real life.
Didn’t it? I know that the movie itself wasn’t called “Star Wars Episode IV : A New Hope” until the Phanom Menace was released (I HATE the fact that they changed the name, BTW), but I seem to recall the opening crawl headlined with that phrase, at least on the original 1980s video release…
“Arrogant man who earned millions & millions of dollars for a few months work in a completely unessential profession where most people cannot make a living regardless of whether or not they are talented acts like an aristocratic put-out snot regarding the role and the people who made him spectacularly wealthy in his old age and has his stuffed shirt punctured”. Potato, potahto.
As for being remembered only for Obi Wan,
1- That’s not true- his David Lean films and his comedies especially are still well regarded, sell well on DVD, and still watched
2- For those who don’t know him from his classic films, what are the chances they’d have remembered him at all had it not been for Obi Wan?
