Elvis Presley’s Illegitimate Bear-Child/Man-Child

More adventure than humanly possible

The company included a department that was the Star Wars Fan Club. So employees were bathed in posters and patches year round. Oh, I always loved my “Revenge of the Jedi” stuff.

In the fall of 1985 I was still new at Lucasfilm, and very new to filmmaking. Word on Kerner Blvd. was that they needed a voice for Howard the Duck, the new film getting ready to shoot. The duck, Howard, was going to be played by a little person in a duck suit, like R2D2 or an ewok. The stars of the film were the unknown Tim Robbins (who had just had a small role in Top Gun) and Lea Thompson (freshly hot, after starring in Back to the Future). But the voice of Howard was uncast. A memo circulated at the company that anyone could audition for the voice. I tried out. My career was saved by not getting that part.

For what it’s worth, it never felt like Lucas was that into this movie. It was the passion project for his close friends Gloria Katz and Willard Huyck, and I think he owed them after they helped write the script for his American Graffiti. He agreed to produce Howard for them. This was payback.

No one associated with this film ever mentions it.

The Droid Works, my division of the company, didn’t interact much with the various productions having things done at Industrial Light & Magic (the effects group), Sprockets Systems (post…