George Lucas

George Walton Lucas Jr. (born May 14, 1944) is an American filmmaker and philanthropist.

Lucas is best known for creating the Star Wars and Indiana Jones franchises and founding Lucasfilm, LucasArts, Industrial Light & Magic, and THX.

His family attended Disneyland during its opening week in July 1955, and Lucas would remain enthusiastic about the park.

He was interested in comics and science fiction, including television programs such as the Flash Gordon serials.

Long before Lucas began making films, he yearned to be a racecar driver, and he spent most of his high school years racing on the underground circuit at fairgrounds and hanging out at garages.

On June 12, 1962, a few days before his high school graduation, Lucas was driving his souped-up Autobianchi Bianchina when another driver broadsided him, flipping his car several times before it crashed into a tree; Lucas's seatbelt had snapped, ejecting him and thereby saving his life.

However, his lungs were bruised from severe hemorrhaging and he required emergency medical treatment.

This incident caused him to lose interest in racing as a career, but also inspired him to pursue his other interests.

Lucas's father owned a stationery store, and had wanted George to work for him when he turned 18.

Lucas had been planning to go to art school, but his father said he wouldn't pay for it, ironically.

Lucas declared upon leaving home that he would be a millionaire by the age of 30.

He attended Modesto Junior College, where he studied anthropology, sociology, and literature, amongst other subjects.

He also began shooting with an 8 mm camera, including filming car races.

At this time, Lucas became interested in Canyon Cinema: screenings of underground, avant-garde 16 mm filmmakers like Jordan Belson, Stan Brakhage, and Bruce Conner.

Lucas and childhood friend John Plummer also saw classic European films of the time, including Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless, François Truffaut's Jules et Jim, and Federico Fellini's 8½.

"That's when George really started exploring," Plummer said.

Through his interest in autocross racing, Lucas met renowned cinematographer Haskell Wexler, another race enthusiast.

Wexler, later to work with Lucas on several occasions, was impressed by Lucas's talent.

"George had a very good eye, and he thought visually," he recalled.

At Plummer's recommendation, Lucas then transferred to the University of Southern California (USC) School of Cinematic Arts.

USC was one of the earliest universities to have a school devoted to motion picture film.

After graduating from the University of Southern California in 1967, Lucas moved to San Francisco and co-founded American Zoetrope with filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola.

Lucas wrote and directed THX 1138 (1971), based on his student short Electronic Labyrinth: THX 1138 4EB, which was a critical success but a financial failure.

He also produced and wrote a variety of films and television series through Lucasfilm between the 1970s and the 2010s.

His next work as a writer-director was American Graffiti (1973), inspired by his youth in early 1960s Modesto, California, and produced through the newly founded Lucasfilm.

The film was critically and commercially successful and received five Academy Award nominations, including Best Director and Best Picture.

Lucas's next film, the epic space opera Star Wars (1977), had a troubled production but was a surprise hit, becoming the highest-grossing film at the time, winning six Academy Awards and sparking a cultural phenomenon.

Lucas produced and co-wrote the sequels Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Episode VI – Return of the Jedi (1983).

With director Steven Spielberg, he created, produced, and co-wrote the Indiana Jones films Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), The Temple of Doom (1984), The Last Crusade (1989), and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008), and served as an executive producer in name only on The Dial of Destiny (2023).

Lucas is also known for his collaboration with composer John Williams, who was recommended to him by Spielberg, and with whom he has worked for all the films in both of these franchises.

In 1997, Lucas re-released the original Star Wars trilogy as part of a Special Edition featuring several modifications; home media versions with further changes were released in 2004 and 2011.

He returned to directing with a Star Wars prequel trilogy comprising Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace (1999), Episode II – Attack of the Clones (2002), and Episode III – Revenge of the Sith (2005).

He last collaborated on the CGI-animated television series Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008–2014, 2020), the war film Red Tails (2012), and the CGI film Strange Magic (2015).

In addition to his career as a filmmaker, Lucas has founded and supported multiple philanthropic organizations and campaigns dedicated to education and the arts, including the George Lucas Educational Foundation, which has been noted as a key supporter in the creation of the federal E-Rate program to provide broadband funding to schools and libraries, and the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, a forthcoming art museum in Los Angeles developed with Lucas' wife, Mellody Hobson.

Lucas was born and raised in Modesto, California, the son of Dorothy Ellinore Lucas (née Bomberger) and George Walton Lucas Sr., and is of German, Swiss-German, English, Scottish, and distant Dutch and French descent.

He served as chairman of Lucasfilm before selling it to The Walt Disney Company in 2012.

Lucas is one of history's most financially successful filmmakers and has been nominated for four Academy Awards.

Lucas personally directed or conceived 10 of the 100 highest-grossing movies at the North American box office, adjusted for ticket-price inflation.

Lucas is considered to be one of the most significant figures of the 20th-century New Hollywood movement, and a pioneer of the modern blockbuster.

Despite this, he has remained an independent filmmaker away from Hollywood for most of his career.