{"id":57569,"date":"2019-05-04T19:07:29","date_gmt":"2019-05-04T09:37:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/?p=57569"},"modified":"2019-05-04T19:07:29","modified_gmt":"2019-05-04T09:37:29","slug":"vale-peter-mayhew","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/2019\/05\/04\/vale-peter-mayhew\/","title":{"rendered":"Vale – Peter Mayhew"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

Star Wars<\/em> actor Peter Mayhew, who played the enormous and furry Wookie co-pilot of the Millennium Falcon, Chewbacca, has passed away.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

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Mayhew (at rear) with his Star Wars cast-mates.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There are few people on Earth more closely associated with a single role than Peter Mayhew, who was cast as Chewbacca due to his height. At 7′ tall, Mayhew was cast by George Lucas in the role following a lengthy search for tall actors; Mayhew was working as an orderly at a London hospital at the time, although he had previous film experience working on 1977’s Sinbad & The Eye of The Tiger <\/em>for director Sam Wanamaker. As Chewie, Mayhew was completely covered in a hairy brown costume, personifying the character through three feature films: Star Wars<\/em> (1977), The Empire Strikes Back<\/em> (1980) and Return of The Jedi<\/em> (1984). Mayhew also contributed to various specials and spin-offs, including the reviled Star Wars Holiday Special<\/em> from 1978, and various short films.<\/p>\n

Peter Mayhew appeared in non-Chewbacca roles in 2008’s Yesterday Was A Lie<\/em>, Killer Inc<\/em> (2016), and reprised his most famous role for the Disney reboot of Star Wars<\/em>, The Force Awakens<\/em>, in 2015. Actor Joonas Suotamo took over the role in The Last Jedi<\/em> and Solo: A Star Wars Story<\/em>, with Mayhew’s guidance and blessing.<\/p>\n

Peter Mayhew passed away on April 30th. He was 74.<\/p>\n

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Peter Mayhew with Star Wars cast-mate Harrison Ford.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Star Wars actor Peter Mayhew, who played the enormous and furry Wookie co-pilot of the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":48482,"featured_media":57574,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[213],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-57569","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-obituary"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/petermayhew-chewbacca-mask.jpg",798,363,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/petermayhew-chewbacca-mask-500x280.jpg",500,280,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/petermayhew-chewbacca-mask-660x363.jpg",660,363,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/petermayhew-chewbacca-mask-768x349.jpg",640,291,true],"large":["https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/petermayhew-chewbacca-mask.jpg",640,291,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/petermayhew-chewbacca-mask.jpg",798,363,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/petermayhew-chewbacca-mask.jpg",798,363,false],"covernews-featured":["https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/petermayhew-chewbacca-mask.jpg",798,363,false],"covernews-medium":["https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/petermayhew-chewbacca-mask.jpg",540,246,false],"profile_24":["https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/petermayhew-chewbacca-mask-24x24.jpg",24,24,true],"profile_48":["https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/petermayhew-chewbacca-mask-48x48.jpg",48,48,true],"profile_96":["https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/petermayhew-chewbacca-mask-96x96.jpg",96,96,true],"profile_150":["https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/petermayhew-chewbacca-mask.jpg",150,68,false],"profile_300":["https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/petermayhew-chewbacca-mask.jpg",300,136,false],"sow-carousel-default":["https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/petermayhew-chewbacca-mask-272x182.jpg",272,182,true]},"author_info":{"display_name":"Rodney Twelftree","author_link":"https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/author\/rodney\/"},"category_info":"Obituary<\/a>","tag_info":"Obituary","comment_count":"2","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57569","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/48482"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57569"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57569\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57569"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57569"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57569"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}