After some exhaustive searches by StarWars.com to no avail, one of our readers was able to locate Rusty by posting an all-points out on his blog (why didn't we think of that?). This led to Rusty's first interview about the book in over 25 years, in which he discussed how the book came about and what had become of its long-lost author.
Here's a brief excerpt from our interview with Rusty (who now goes by Matt):
In terms of Star Wars fandom, we've pretty much missed you the last 25 years. What are you doing these days?
It has been an interesting 25 years. In the summer of 1983, my parents and I relocated to Atlanta, GA. The book fervor had pretty much died down at that point, so I settled back into relative anonymity. My schoolmates pretty much knew about the book but kind of left me alone about it, which suited me fine. I finished high school and went to college to study history. While in college, I fell into (and fell in love with) something that I never would have expected to be a part of: firefighting and emergency medical services. On top of being a full-time college student, I worked as a firefighter for the small town I went to college in. The college maintained a fire station on the campus that was manned mostly by students at the college.
I got some basic medical training and became eligible to run medical calls as well as fire calls and discovered that I actually enjoyed that end of emergency services more than the burning buildings. I finished college in 1992 and returned to Atlanta, immediately enrolling in Paramedic school. I finished paramedic school in 1994 and worked as a medic around metro Atlanta for several years. In my EMS career, I did non-emergency transport work, critical care hospital-to-hospital transport work, neonatal transport work, and worked in high-volume 911 environments as well. During my time in EMS, I met, fell in love with, and married my wife. We've been married now for almost 10 years and are in the process of adopting our first child.
In late 2000, I went to work for IBM, doing technical support work and continued working part-time in EMS. At the end of 2002, I went to work for the Centers for Disease Control in one of their post-9/11 counterterrorism initiatives. I am still there and am also currently pursuing a master's degree in emergency and disaster management.
As far as hobbies and interests go, I still play guitar, enjoy geocaching, fitness (I've recently gotten into running and ran my first 10k), reading, some movies and television (some favorite TV shows include Lost, Rescue Me (love Dennis Leary), the "reimagined" version of Battlestar Galactica, etc), and am a fan of mixed martial arts and the UFC.
Read the full interview here and our blog posting on how Rusty was finally tracked down here.
Other Retro Discoveries
Since 2008 has been a bit quieter than recent years Star Wars-wise (with the exception of The Clone Wars, of course), we here at Lucas Online had the opportunity to hunker down and really start exploring the riches hidden right here within the walls of Lucasfilm -- specifically, within the Skywalker Archives themselves.
Meet Boba Fett
Premiums and Protos
Leica Reel
Rare Japanese Candies
What follows are a handful of items we've pulled from obscurity within the depths of Lucasfilm's Licensing, Imaging and Film archives over the last year to present to our StarWars.com readers:
- Meet Boba Fett video: We actually discovered this gem of a find last year during our research for our "Proto Fett" article, but hadn't transferred the footage for posting at the time. We couldn't believe our luck when we discovered what is likely the very first video footage of the Fettster in action, shown in his early all-white helmet and armor with a tutorial on his weapons and other features given by none other than Sound Designer Ben Burtt himself. Lucas Online's Pablo Hidalgo was also fortunate enough to catch Burtt and Duwayne Dunham (who wore the costume for the video) at a 2007 movie screening to ask them a few questions about the early footage. Those responses have been cut into the rare footage (which includes a shot of Fett's first mock-up serape, a Star Wars beach towel!)
- Protos and Premiums: Among the boxes housed at Lucasfilm's Licensing Archives, we discovered a stash of early transparencies that contained images of rare toy prototypes and some obscure international food premium promotions. We've recently enlisted the help of authors and collectors Gus Lopez and Duncan Jenkins to offer some brief commentary on the imagery, which we just launched in a semi-regular column earlier this month (see the first two parts, Action Figure Display Stand Prototypes and Smarties Candies, 1981). Stay tuned for more rare imagery and commentary from this great find in the coming months!
- Licensing Archives tours: Another semi-regular feature recently launched is our open-ended tour of the Licensing Archives -- so far, we've uncovered some rare Star Wars posters, early super-8 movies, and a bunch of toys and collectibles made before Christmas, 1978. We also plan to delve deeper into the archives in the coming months, so keep an eye on this feature as well! (Be sure to check out a couple more features culled from rare images found in the archive, including rare international Droids and Ewoks merch and early Halloween costumes)
- Holiday Special "Leica Reel": We of course mention this in our segment about "Holiday Special" anniversary content, but thought it warranted a second mention here as a qualified "retro discovery". This animatic, or "leica reel" as it's known in the industry, was discovered among a stash of old videotapes we recently uncovered (including the previously mentioned "Meet Boba Fett"). This rare footage, which appears to have been shot by a video camera pointed at a film editing monitor, shows how the animated segment of the special was first conceived, complete with early line drawings of the scenes and temporary voice-over acting (love the "booping" R2-D2). If you're a fan of the special, this is one you don't want to miss.
- Finally, two features derived from the Celebration Japan collecting panels were translated and transferred to the site, both of which offer a rare glimpse into the field of Japanese Star Wars collecting. Check them out here: Vintage Japanese Candy Premiums and Rare Japanese Star Wars Posters.
