RIP KENNY BAKER, THE MAN INSIDE R2-D2:

The British actor who played R2-D2 in the Star Wars films has died at the age of 81 after a long illness. Kenny Baker, who was 3ft 8in tall, shot to fame in 1977 when he first played the robot character.

He went on to play the character in The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, as well as the three Star Wars prequels from 1999 to 2005. He also appeared in a number of other much loved films in the 1980s, including The Elephant Man, Time Bandits and Flash Gordon.

Back in 2003, I wrote the cover story for the premiere issue of the robotics-oriented magazine Servo on the history of robots in the movies. (The cover photo was a shot of C3PO from the prequels with his gleaming gold head covering removed.) For the article, I interviewed Don Bies of Lucasfilm, the man who operated R2 when he was radio controlled in the prequels. Bies told me that due to advancements in that technology, while Baker was in episode one “a fair amount,” as the prequels went on, R2 was increasingly operated remotely, but there was always at least a few shots of Baker inside the R2 suit in each prequel, just so that his name could legitimately appear in the credits. RIP.