Biography for
Ralph McQuarrie More at IMDbPro »

Date of Birth

13 June 1929, Gary, Indiana, USA

Date of Death

3 March 2012, Berkeley, California, USA

Birth Name

Ralph Angus McQuarrie

Spouse

Joan Benjamin

(1983 - 3 March 2012) (his death)

Trivia

One drawing done for Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)... the book illustration of the "Ark of the Covenant". In Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980), he walks in front of one of his own matte paintings.

Former conceptual design artist for Boeing

For the original Star Wars, the special effects team had to come up with a believable size for the Death Star that would allow it to appear round in long shots, but still appear flat in close-ups, since these had to be created by using flat sections of model, placed on flat tables. McQuarrie ended up calculating that the Death Star was 92 miles in diameter, which makes it approximately 290 miles in circumference.

Personal Quotes

[on the visualization of Star Wars] George had ideas about how his picture would look. in fact, I think the look of the picture was more interesting to him than the plot.