Marcia Lucas death: Oscar-winning ‘Star Wars’ editor Marcia Lucas, former wife of director George Lucas, dies at 80

los angeles — Marcia Lucas, who won an Oscar as editor of the original “Star Wars” film in 1977 and was among a group of women whose liberation was essential to Hollywood’s new era, has died, her family’s lawyer announced Friday. She was 80 years old.

Lucas, who was married to “Star Wars” creator George Lucas from 1969 to 1983, died Wednesday of metastatic cancer, her attorney, Deidre Von Rock, said in an email to The Associated Press. She died in Rancho Mirage, California, surrounded by her loved ones, Von Rock said.

Marcia Lucas was the editor of 1983’s “Return of the Jedi” and the George Lucas-directed pre-“Star Wars” films “THX 1138” and “American Graffiti.”

She was also part of the editing team for director Martin Scorsese’s 1970s films Taxi Driver, Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore and New York, New York.

Editor was a rare high-level creative position where a woman could find a foothold in Hollywood. Marcia Lucas became one of several women whose work in the editor’s chair made sense of the work of overwhelmingly male directors in the New Hollywood of the late 1960s through early 1980s, including Dede Allen, editor of “Bonnie and Clyde” and “Dog Day Afternoon”; Verna Fields, editor of “Paper Moon” and “Jaws”; and Thelma Schoonmaker, editor of most of Scorsese’s films beginning with “Raging Bull” in the 1980s.

Lucas has often been called the unsung hero of “Star Wars,” the original film that became known after sequels, prequels and spin-offs by its subtitle “A New Hope.”

She convinced her then-husband that Obi-Wan Kenobi, played by Alec Guinness, should die in his lightsaber battle with Darth Vader and become a spiritual mentor to Luke Skywalker, played by Mark Hamill.

And she had to make sense of initial footage that could have been chaos in the wrong hands, including the climactic Rebel attack on the Death Star.

“It was very complicated, and we had 40,000 feet of dialogue footage of the pilots saying this and that,” George Lucas told Rolling Stone in an interview a few months after the film came out. “And she had to get rid of all that, and do all the fighting, too.” “No one had really tried to incorporate a real conspiracy story into a dogfight, and we were trying to do that.”

Lucas Marcia Griffin was born in Modesto, California shortly after the end of World War II. She moved to Los Angeles with her mother after her parents divorced when she was a young child.

She began working as a film librarian and transitioned to working as an editor for commercials, trailers and promotional films. She was an assistant editor on Fields’ documentary Journey to the Pacific, which also employed George Lucas, then a film student at the University of Southern California.

The couple became engaged soon after. Their marriage would essentially end in 1982, but they kept their divorce secret until after “Return of the Jedi” was released in 1983. Marcia Lucas was then married to Tom Rodriguez, a production manager at the Skywalker Ranch Production Center, from 1983 to 1993.

She is survived by her daughters, Amanda Lucas and Amy Soper, and her grandchildren, Felix Halikainen, Eliana Halikainen, and Knox Soper.

“Her impact on film is indelible, but those who knew her well will remember the way she made life more vibrant, more beautiful, more fun and full of love,” a family statement said. “Her work was known for its emotional intelligence, rhythm and humanity – a rare ability to find the truth of a scene and bring vitality, momentum and clarity to the screen.”