Mark Hamill Remembers R2-D2 Actor Kenny Baker: ‘He WAS the Droid I Was Looking For!’

Hollywood pays tribute to the man who brought the “Star Wars” droid to life

mark hamill, kenny baker

Friends, fans and loved ones mourned Kenny Baker on Saturday, with “Star Wars” co-star Mark Hamill writing of the man who played R2-D2, “He WAS the droid I was looking for!”

As Guillermo del Toro put it: “Like Napoleon, his stature was measured not from head-to-ground but head-to-sky.”

Baker, who stood was 83 years old and 3′ 8″, also appeared in “Time Bandits,” “Labyrinth,” “Willow,” “Flash Gordon” and other projects.

Baker — who appeared in the original “Star Wars” trilogy and prequels as well as documentaries relating to them — had problems with his lungs for many years and often needed a wheelchair.

His niece, Abigail Shield, told the Guardian he was doing “very poorly for a long time.”

In his early days, he joined Billy Smart’s Circus as a clown and shadow ringmaster. Later in his career, he toured the country for nine years doing pantomime and ice shows, at which time he met the queen. He went on to form a musical comedy act: The Mini Tones.

Baker and Anthony Daniels, the actor who played R2’s protocol droid partner, C-3PO, were bickering partners onscreen, but their dynamic was like that off an old married couple who love each other deep down. Off-screen, they truly didn’t get along.

But as the remembrances from California to Baker’s home country of England attest, he was beloved by countless others around the world.

https://twitter.com/mcgregor_ewan/status/764519004841148416

 

Rosemary Rossi

Rosemary joined TheWrap in 2016 after more than two decades covering entertainment for American Media and Bauer Publishing as West Coast Editor and as the Hollywood Correspondent for Australia’s Horowitz Graham Publishing. In addition, she reviewed films and television, sized up trends and penned a weekly tongue-in-cheek column called “Hollywood’s Worst Ideas This Week” for…

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