Marcia Lucas, Oscar-winning “Star Wars” editor and ex-wife of George Lucas, dies at 80

WASHINGTON — Marcia Lucas wins Oscar as original film editor 1977 Star Wars She was one of a group of women whose editing was crucial to the New Hollywood era of cinema and has died, a lawyer for her family said Friday. She is 80 years old.

Lucas, wife of Star Wars creator george lucas Attorney Deidre Von Rock, who lived between 1969 and 1983, died Wednesday of metastatic cancer, attorney Deidre Von Rock said in an email to The Associated Press. Von Rock said she died in Rancho Mirage, Calif., surrounded by loved ones.

Marcia Lucas was an editor on 1983’s Return of the Jedi as well as George Lucas’s pre-Star Wars films THX 1138 and American Graffiti.

She was also a member 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 is a rare senior creative position where women can find a foothold in Hollywood. Marcia Lucas became one of several women whose editing work was significant on the work of the overwhelmingly male directors of New Hollywood in the late 1960s to early 1980s, including Dede Allen, the editor of The Big Bad and Hot Afternoon; Verna Fields, editor of Paper Moon and Jaws; Thelma Schoonmaker is the editor of most of Scorsese’s films, starting with 1980’s Raging Bull.

Lucas is often called the unsung hero of Star Wars, the original film made famous by its subtitle A New Hope after sequels, prequels and spin-offs.

She convinced her then-husband that he should let Alec Guinness’s Obi-Wan Kenobi die in a lightsaber battle with Darth Vader and become a spiritual guide to Mark Hamill’s Luke Skywalker.

She must make sense of raw footage that could cause chaos if it fell into the wrong hands, including the Rebels’ climactic attack on the Death Star.

“It was very complex, we had 40,000 feet of dialogue footage and the pilot said this and that. She had to cull all of that and get into all the fighting,” George Lucas said in an interview with Rolling Stone a few months after the film’s release. “No one has really tried to interweave a true episodic story with the melee, and we’re trying to do that.”

Lucas was born Marcia Griffin in Modesto, California, shortly after World War II. When she was a child, she and her mother moved to Los Angeles after her parents divorced.

She started out as a film librarian and later worked as an editor for commercials, trailers and promos. She was an assistant editor on Fields’ documentary Pacific Journey, which also included George Lucas, a film student at the University of Southern California at the time.

The couple soon became engaged. Their marriage essentially ended in 1982, but they didn’t divorce secretly until 1983, after Return of the Jedi was released. From 1983 to 1993, Marcia Lucas was married to Tom Rodriguez, a production manager at the Skywalker Ranch Production Center.

She is survived by daughters Amanda Lucas and Amy Soper, and grandchildren Felix Hallikainen, Aeliana Hallikainen and Knox Soper.

“Her impact on film is indelible, but those who knew her best will remember the way she made life more vivid, more beautiful, more fun and more loving,” a family statement said. “Her work is renowned for its emotional intelligence, rhythm and humanity – a rare ability to uncover the truth of a scene and bring emotion, drive and clarity to the screen.”

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