Marcia Lucas, one of three editors who won an Academy Award for their work on the original Star Wars film, has died. She was 80.
Lucasfilm was deeply saddened to learn of the passing of Marcia Lucas. The 80-year-old was one of the three editors to take home an Oscar for 1977’s Star Wars: A New Hope.
After Lucasfilm’s establishment in 1971, production began on George Lucas’ newest feature film, American Graffiti (1973). Marcia Lucas joined her mentor Verna Fields as editor of the film, for which the pair received an Oscar nomination. Marcia then worked for director Martin Scorsese on Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore (1974) and Taxi Driver (1976) as Lucasfilm readied Star Wars: A New Hope.
As the film entered post-production, George Lucas found that a near total restart was required, and Richard Chew and Paul Hirsch joined the editorial team with Marcia, who eventually departed to work on Scorsese’s New York, New York (1977). Along with Chew and Hirsch, she would go on to win the Oscar for Star Wars in 1978.
In succeeding years, Marcia contributed to other Lucasfilm productions, including More American Graffiti (1979), Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (1980), and Star Wars: Return of the Jedi (1983), among others.
“I love film editing,” Marcia once told a reporter. “I have an innate ability to take good material and make it better, and to take bad material and make it fair.”
Lucasfilm joins the global filmmaking community in mourning the loss of Marcia Lucas.