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George Lucas:
Biography |
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George
Lucas |
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BIOGRAPHY |
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| Director, Producer,
Screenwriter |
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| Date of
Birth: |
May 14th, 1944 |
| Sign: |
Taurus |
| Place of
Birth: |
Modesto, California, USA |
| Education: |
University of Southern California, in
film |
| Business
Information: |
Lucasfilm Ltd.
P.O. Box 2009
San Rafael, CA 94912, USA
Phone: 415-662-1800
Type: Motion Pictures |
| Web
Address: |
http://www.lucasfilm.com |
| Personal
quote: |
"It's hard work making movies. It's like
being a doctor: you work long hours, very hard
hours, and it's emotional, tense work. If
you don't really love it, then it ain't worth
it." | | |
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| George Walton Lucas Jr. was born on May
14,1944 in Modesto, California. He spent his
childhood fascinated with comic books,
especially “Buck Rogers” and “Flash Gordon.” He
spent his teenage years bored with the tedium of
routine school days and teachers. Car racing was
the only excitement that Lucas was
allowed. |
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It was his love of car racing that would
dramatically change his life. June 12, 1962,
three days before Lucas was to graduate from
high school, he was involved in a serious
accident. Lucas was gravely injured when his
Fiat Biancina was struck broadside by another
car (a fellow student at Downey High School,
Modesto California) and was sent rolling toward
a walnut tree at sixty miles per hour.
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His seat belt snapped and he was flung
from the car which, a split second later,
collided with such force that it moved the tree
two feet, roots and all. If the seat belt had
worked, he would have been killed instantly.
“You can’t have that kind of experience and not
feel that there must be a reason why you’re
here,” Lucas has said. “I realized I should be
spending my time trying to figure out what that
reason is and trying to fulfill it.”
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| In 1966, Lucas was hired as a teaching
assistant |
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| He immediately enrolled in a local junior
college in a successful attempt to bring his
grades up high enough to be accepted in the
University of Southern California’s film school.
He interpreted “film” to mean “photography,” but |
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once he began his work in motion pictures he
knew it
was what he loved. He became
determined to succeed in this competitive
environment. Lucas differed greatly from much of
the rest of the ‘60s film school generation I
that his love affair with movies began only
after he entered college. “I only went to movies
to chase girls,” Lucas commented of his youth in
Modesto. “It took years before good movies got
to my town – and foreign films?
Never.” |
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| Lucas’ student work reflected the pop
culture obsessions of his youth: 1:42:08,
a racing mini-epic, and The
Emperor, about a disc jockey named Emperor
Hudson, were signature student works, which
Lucas would later revisit and build upon in
American Graffiti.
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| After graduating from USC in 1966, Lucas
was hired as a teaching assistant assigned to
train cameramen for the U.S. Military. It was
during this time that Lucas found an opportunity
to shoot THX
1138:4EB – an abstract, Orwellian science
fiction short which went on to win several major
student awards and which would ultimately |
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be
adapted to the big screen for Lucas’ first
studio feature. In 1967, Lucas re-enrolled as a
USC graduate student. In the same year, he was
selected as one of four student filmmakers from
the USC and UCLA film programs to make a “behind
the scenes” documentary about the making of McKenna’s
Gold. On the strength of his many student
awards, Lucas won USC’s annual scholarship to
become a production apprentice at Warner
Brothers.
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| Lucas might be driven by grand ambitions,
he was financially
cautious |
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Along with his high school car accident
and the decision to attend USC; the
apprenticeship turned out to be another
life-altering event. Warner Bros. was in turmoil
thanks to its recent purchase by Seven Arts and
the resulting exodus of founding production
chief Jack Warner. There was only one film in
production on the entire lot: a musical starring
Fred Astair and Petula Clark entitled Finian’s
Rainbow, which was being directed by a
27-year-old UCLA graduate, |
| Francis Coppola. It
was due to this that the two met and became life
long friends despite their opposite
personalities. Lucas was physically slight,
Coppola was large and flamboyant; while Lucas
might be driven by grand ambitions, he was
financially cautious while Coppola was reckless
with money; where Lucas was quiet and reserved,
Coppola reveled in the
spotlight. |
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| During his apprenticeship, Coppola made
Lucas an offer he couldn’t
refuse. |
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| During his apprenticeship, Coppola made
Lucas an offer he couldn’t refuse. Lucas would
become a paid assistant on both Finian’s
Rainbow and The Rain
People, the artier road movie that Coppola
was prepping on the side, and Coppola would help
nurture Lucas’ newest baby, a feature length
version of THX.
When Finian’s
Rainbow wrapped, Coppola made good on his
promise and talked Warner Bros. into signing
Lucas to develop his THX
feature. Lucas continued to work on both The Rain
People with Coppola during the day and work
on THX by
night. |
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In 1969, when The Rain
People was completed, Coppola decided to
move on to the next phase of his plan to take
over the film industry. He went on a celebrated
equipment-buying spree during his trip to
Europe, which, by some accounts, left the more
conservative Lucas terrified. Once back in the
U.S., Coppola and Lucas conceived a plan to rent
a warehouse in |
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| San Francisco, CA and turn it
into an independent studio called American
Zoetrope, after one of the earliest motion
picture devices. |
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