Mark Hamill is one of the most shining stars in Hollywood. It is strange to think that Star Wars was almost the actor’s final movie, as well as his first as he suffered a terrifying car accident in which he got injured, he broke his nose and cheekbones.
How a car accident affected the life and career of the celebrity
On January 11, 1977, a little more than five months before the release of one of the most iconic movie, Mark Hamill encountered a horrible car accident while he was driving his new BMW alongside a freeway in Southern California going about 65-70 MPH. He was driving in high speed and at the same time listening to Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture.
He realized in a little while that he was suddenly going to to miss his exit, and turned sharply and really hard across four lanes attempting to reach it. His newly bought German car turned over onto its side and rolled off the road.
The star of the animated series broke his nose and both of his cheekbones. His original face was going to change drastically. Hamill himself told that when he woke up he found himself in hospital and when someone let him see his face in mirror he just felt that his career was over.
Surgeons had to restore much of the damage caused by the horrible accident. They used cartilage from his ear to rebuild his nose. Such a transformation altered Mark’s appearance altogether, and it became evident in his next movie, which was a teen comedy Corvette Summer, for which he starred only six months after the accident.
Hamill avoids to talk about the life changing crash, just only to accept that this happened to him. His dramatic scarring on face at the opening of The Empire Strikes Back was only partly artificial.
A year after the release of The Empire Strikes Back, in May 1981, the American celebrity shifted to New York with his wife, Marilou York, whom he had met between the making of the two Star Wars movies, and their first born son, Nathan. He planned to expand his work variation, by doing a little theater, before he returned to Elstree Studios for the shooting of Return of the Jedi in early 1982.
Regardless of the fact that his appearance has changed, much different from his first appearance in Star Wars, Mark Hamill has recognized himself as one of the most renowned actors in the world, anyhow.
FAQ’s
- How much did Mark Hamill’s face change form before his accident to after?
When Mark Hamill appeared in Star Wars A New Hope people fell in love with him, for most of the teens Mark was their idol. When the second Star Wars came out, people were eagerly waiting to see Mark again. They felt that Mark had gone from being the perfect boy next door to be somewhat odd looking guy. Later when they heard about the accident and Saw his before and after pictures, the two biggest of the changes that anyone could see were a much broader nose in the after picture as well as a jaw that wasn’t as sharply defined as before.
In an interview with Michael Aspel, Hamill reveal that as he was injured from the accident, he only required getting his nose fixed. The rest of his face didn’t need plastic surgery, nothing like what some people were talking about at that time. He said that his nose still looks different than before.
Hamill did not look too bad afterward because he did some shows on Broadway in plays such as The Elephant Man, Amadeus, Room Service and the Nerd Harrigan. For 'N Hart he received a Drama Desk Award nomination.
Even though the award winning actor had undergone a partial ‘reconstruction’ of his face with plastic surgery after the terrific car accident, he is still known to be one of the best celebrities worldwide. Mark Hamill is 68, and he still thrives as ever!
- How the accident affected the franchise?
The Star Wars franchise appeared to be one of the largest and most successful franchises in the world. The franchise was all started with a lonely farm boy on a desert planet named as Tatooine, and from there, it has become an experience that very few people can imagine.
The key reasons for the success of the original trilogy was because of the main trio of characters, Luke Skywalker, Han Solo and Leia Organa. All three of them were performed by unknown actors of that time, and due to the success of trilogy, they all became famous.
George Lucas required to shoot a few more scenes for the first movie but as Hamill was injured, Lucas had to use a stunt double in its place.
If Hamill had encountered the severity of the accident, it would have an effect on the next Star Wars movie that he worked for i.e. The Empire Strikes Back. There are some conflicting sources about the facts that how exactly that movie was affected. One of the examples is that Lucas didn’t include the scene at the start of the movie where a Wampa attacks Luke’s face in order to explain Hamill’s changed appearance.
However, Carrie Fisher, who played Leia in the star wars, told that the scene was altered so that the Wampa attacks Luke’s face to explain away Hamill’s different appearance. Due to this conflict of evidence, fans were divided on the issue that why the Wampa scene was included in the first place. Above all the fans agree that in case of Hamill’s accident been worse, the whole franchise might had been derailed.
- Why Mark Hamill’s death might had ruined the franchise?
There are not so many cases of actors or actresses been passed away while they were in the core of filming for a major franchise, but it has actually happened before? For example, Paul Walker starred in the Fast & Furious movies, died during the filming of Furious 7. Consequently, the filmmakers had to use CGI and Walker’s brothers to film a farewell for Walker, and this technology worked out pretty well.
If Hamill had died or left severely injured and unable to work, in his car accident, then Lucas would not be able to do all those things as the CGI technology was not actually available in the 70s, so Lucas’ would be left with the only option to recast Luke.
Doing this could have sunk the franchise entirely given that the fans had already fell in love with the original trio, so much so that recasting them was almost off limits these days.
If Lucas had to recast Luke, then there was no guarantee that fans would continue to be in love with the franchise. And finally the Star Wars franchise probably wouldn’t have been able to last as long as it did in the absence of that type of fan support.