Celebrity Biographies
Peter Mayhew
He gave life to Han Solo’s furry sidekick who was always meant to be let win in five films in the “Star Wars” saga. The collective of “Star Wars” fans is mourning the death of Peter Mayhew, the towering actor who gave life to Chewbacca, at age 74, on April 30, 2019, at his residence in North Texas, as confirmed his family through the artist’s official Twitter account. “He was a nice, kind man, possessed of great dignity and a noble character,” recalls co-star Harrison Ford. “These aspects of his own personality, plus his humor and humor, carried over to Chewbacca. We were film partners and real-life friends for over thirty years and I loved him. Chewbacca was a big part of the success of the movies we made together. He knew how important the series’ fans were to its continued success and he gave himself to them. Millions of people and I will never forget what Peter gave us all.”
Born on May 19, 1944 in Barnes, London, Peter Mayhew grew to 2.21 meters tall. He was working as an assistant at King’s College Hospital, in the British capital, when he noticed his enormous size Charles Schneer, a film producer, who recruited him to play Minoton, a metal minotaur who shocked the public in Sinbad and the Eye of the tiger , the weakest of the three sailor films in which stop-motion maestro Ray Harryhausen worked .
At the end of filming, he was offered the role of the life-changing galactic Wookiee characterized by his growls. Although he limited himself to putting on the huge costume, fans attribute his characteristic way of walking to him. After the enormous success of the film directed by George Lucas , he lavished himself in saga conventions, where he more than earned a reputation as one of the friendliest and closest cast members. He would give life to the ‘wookiee’ in The Empire Strikes Back. During the filming of the icy planet Hot sequences, in Finse, Norway, the fur-covered suit used to get wet, and he was breathing hard under the mask, for which he caught a serious illness, being temporarily replaced by Mark McNamara, player basketball player who became part of the Real Madrid squad. Subsequently, Peter Mayhew returned for Return of the Jedi .
While filming the classic trilogy, he played the tall knight in the television series Dark Towers, which went largely unnoticed. George Lucas would bring him back to give life to Chewbacca again in Revenge of the Sith, 2005, and JJ Abrams for The Force Awakens . “He had to work a lot to get over his mobility issues to get back into the franchise, but to him it wasn’t just a movie, he felt like part of a family.” Due to these complications, he could not bring the character back to life in The Last Jedi , so he limited himself to advising Joonas Suotamo , a younger actor who has also replaced him in Han Solo, a Star Wars story andThe Rise of Skywalker .