The diminutive man behind robot R2-D2 almost turned down his role in ‘Star Wars’
Kenny Baker, the British actor who rose to fame by playing the robot R2-D2 in six “Star Wars” films, died Saturday. He was 81.
His death was confirmed by a spokeswoman for Lucasfilm, the company that created and produces the enormously popular “Star Wars” franchise.
Baker was a little person whose adult height was reported to be 3 feet 8 inches. He referred to his short stature as “my height difficulties” in an autobiographical sketch on his official website, but it would have been impossible for a taller man to play the role that made him famous.
“They said, ‘You’ve got to do it; we can’t find anybody else. You’re small enough to get into it and you’re strong enough to be able to move it,’ ” he said of R2-D2’s cylindrical metal costume in a video interview in Stockholm that he shared on his website. “I was a godsend to them, really.”
Baker was born on Aug. 24, 1934, in Birmingham, England. He began his entertainment career in 1950 as part of a traveling troupe in Britain called Burton Lester’s Midgets.
He soon left that act and toured the country for many years, performing in theaters, nightclubs and holiday resorts in a variety of roles: a circus clown, a performer in an ice-skating show and, later, as part of a musical comedy and variety act alongside performer Jack Purvis. The traveling act brought Baker financial security and a measure of fame in Britain, but it was an entertainment ecosystem that was wiped out by the invention of television. Then came R2-D2. That role began with the 1977 release of “Star Wars,” but it was a part he almost did not take.
“This film came along, and I turned it down,” Baker said during the interview in Stockholm. “I said, ‘I don’t want to be stuck in a robot, what for, for goodness sake.’ ”