John Baxter

George Lucas: A Biography


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      JOHN BAXTER

       George Lucas

      A BIOGRAPHY

       DEDICATION

       To Marie-Dominique Moveable feast

      CONTENTS

       Cover

       Title Page

       11 The Road to the Stars

       12 I am a White Room

       13 For Sale: Universe, Once Used

       14 ‘Put Some More Light on the Dog’

       15 Saving Star Wars

       16 Twerp Cinema

       17 Leaving Los Angeles

       18 Writing Raiders

       19 The Empire Strikes Back

       20 Raiders of the Lost Ark

       21 Fortress Lucas

       22 Snake Surprise

       23 Howard the Duck

       24 The Height of Failure

       25 Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

       26 Back to the Future

       Filmography

       Bibliography

       Index

       Acknowledgments

       About the Author

       Notes

       By the Same Author

       Copyright

       About the Publisher

      There are times when reality becomes too complex for oral communication. But legend gives it a form by which it pervades the whole world.

      The computer Alpha 60 in Alphaville, by Jean-Luc Godard

      The Man in the Panama Hat (years older now) removes the Cross of Coronado from Indy’s belt.

      PANAMA HAT: This is the second time I’ve had to reclaim my property from you.

      INDY: That belongs in a museum.

      PANAMA HAT: So do you.

      From Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Screenplay by Jeffrey Boam, from a story by Menno Meyjes and George Lucas

      As he neared his sixtieth year, George Lucas sat in the shade on the red-brick patio of his home at Skywalker Ranch in Northern California and thought about destiny.

      Almost without realizing it, he had become a legend – a man larger than life, magnified by his achievements, but dwarfed by them too. Over forty years, head down, brow furrowed, working every day and most of every night, ignoring discomfort and ill-health, banishing every distraction to the edge of his vision, he had created something remarkable. An empire. A fortune. A myth.

      He was not a myth to himself. Only a megalomaniac takes his legend at face value. A sense of his ordinariness was part of the reason he’d succeeded. At first, the awe of his acolytes had puzzled him. Then he’d been amused, but irritated too; he’d been brought up to scorn self-advertisement and conceit.

      But as one ages, adulation rests more comfortably on the shoulders. Occasionally, these days, he surrendered to the belief that perhaps he could really achieve anything on which he fixed his energy and instinct.

      Other men, less able, less driven than he, paused before embarking on a project, and sometimes wondered, ‘Why am I doing this? What will be its effects, on me