Marcia Lucas, an editor of major movies, including Star Wars and Taxi Driver, passed away on Friday from metastatic cancer. She was 80.
Born October 4, 1945, Lucas (née Griffin) started her Hollywood career as a film librarian, later earning an apprenticeship in the Motion Pictures Editors Guild. After editing promo films and trailers, she became an assistant editor for Verna Fields on documentary covering Lyndon B. Johnson’s 1967 Asia trip. It was there where she met USC student (and fellow AE) George Lucas, and the pair became engaged. Griffin (now Lucas) then transitioned to feature film editing, working as an AE on Lucas’ THX 1138 before making her debut as lead editor with 1973’s American Grafitti, which landed her and Fields Academy Award nomination for Best Film Editing.
Marcia edited one other film—Martin Scorsese’s 1974 flick (and studio film debut) Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore—before moving on to Star Wars. She worked as co-editor with George and took over from original editor John Jympson, and spent eight weeks alone editing the Death Star run. Her editing, which has been hailed as a work of miracles, is why Han Solo’s return to the fight lands as strong as it does, and she’s also the one who suggested to George that Obi-Wan die during his duel with Darth Vader.
Even after stepping back from editing to raise a family, she made key contributions to her husband’s movies: she returned to edit for Return of the Jedi and urged for Raiders of the Lost Ark to end with Indiana and Marion to provide emotional closure. She’s been hailed in the past as a major (albeit overlooked) reason for Star Wars’ success, even if she never really thought of herself in that light. Outside of the aforementioned films, her editing credits include assisting on The Rain People and The Candidate, and a supervisory role on Taxi Driver and New York, New York.
In a statement to press, Marcia Lucas’ family remembered her as “a brilliant storyteller, a trailblazer for women in film, a loving mother and grandmother, a generous host, and a loyal friend. […] Her influence on film is indelible, but those who knew her best will remember the way she made life feel more vivid, more beautiful, more fun, and more full of love. Her work [brought] emotional intelligence, rhythm, and had a rare ability to find the truth of a scene heart, momentum, and clarity to the screen.”
Lucasfilm, in its own eulogy for her, quoted Marcia’s love for film editing. As she explained to Time Magazine in 1983, she had “an innate ability to take good material and make it better, and to take bad material and make it fair.”
Marcia Lucas is survived by her children and grandchildren.
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