Oh ******* it. This one hurts.

Reunited.

He wasn't looking too good these past few years.

And I agree. This one hurts.

Eat **** chief

I got his autograph years ago. Nice guy with HUGE hands.

Were we close?

In a way....yes, we were.

I was five years old when Star Wars came out. The earliest memories this old man has of his childhood are of sitting in a movie theater and being blown away by John Williams' opening theme. The Star Destroyer coming across the screen was the biggest thing I'd ever seen in my young life.

My older brother and I were early members of the Star Wars Fan Club. Every once in a while, we'd get a newsletter called "Bantha Tracks" that would give us any small nuggets of information on the franchise and would have interviews with the cast and crew. It was a Star Wars forum before the internet.

I crazily collected the bubble gum cards, which sometimes gave personal information on the actors. I knew the name of every actor and would try and watch any movie they appeared in.

Years later in the mid-90's, I went to a convention in Houston that had a whole bunch of actors from the original trilogy. I didn't have the money to spend getting every autograph, so I had to choose. I found one of the more recent "Widescreen" trading cards with Boba Fett on it and got Jeremy Bullock to sign it. I also took one of my really old cards from the original Star Wars series that had a picture of Darth Vader on it and the caption "Dave Prowse." When I handed it to Prowse to sign, he looked surprised at it. He leaned over to Peter Mayhew and showed it to him. Mayhew looked at it and said "wow, that's an old one!"

Were we close? I've known him and the rest of the original cast pretty much my whole life. So yes, this hurts.

I think it was second grade, but I posted a pic of my son's first day of school. Complete with him in a Star Wars shirt, BB8 backpack, and R2-D2 lunchbox and thermos, with the quote "He is never gonna date is he?"

A friend tagged him on Facebook. He told me I was raising my son right, except a Chewbacca lunchbox would be much cooler.

RIP Chewbacca

RIP.

Big part of my life, Star Wars has been.

Interestingly, I can still remember when I got the original Kenner action figure of Chewy. We had taken a trip to Dallas to go to Six Flags, and at some point we ended up at Six Flags Mall ( no idea if that still exists). There was a toy store in there, and I asked if they had any of the figures. By then I had obtained Han and Luke, Leia and Vader, the droids and Obi Wan, and a storm trooper, but really needed the Chewy figure. As luck would have it, that store had the Chewy figure. This was the summer of '78, when I also got an MPc model kit of Luke's X-Wing on that trip.

I met him 7 years ago along with Billy Dee Williams. I had both sign a photo of the two together. In the pic, Billy Dee Was looking up at Chewbacca laughing. As I presented the photo to Mr Mayhew, he asked me why I thought Billy Dee was smiling. I told him I didn't know. He made a joke that he grabbed his ass in the pic, and it was the reason he was laughing. I thought it was a funny story, and he seemed to really enjoy his time at the Dallas show.

It sucks and it is sad but smile and remember that Mr Mayhew brought to life one of the most beloved movie characters in cinematic history, brought smiles to the faces of tens of millions of people, and one half of the greatest buddy duo in film history (my opinion, nothing tops Han & Chewie).

What a great life.

The new Chewie.....

I advise you to celebrate his life as well as the 25th anniversary of Clerks coming out by turning the speakers all the way up and rocking out wherever you are right now.

Urban Ag said:

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Man, I just read his wiki for the first time. Dude pretty much just did SW and appearances as Chewbacca or talking about SW and Chewbacca as his entire career. Didn't marry until 1999 when he met his wife (from Texas) and moved here and became a US citizen. Had three kids her that late in life.

This guy was a boss.

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In 2006 he was a Guest of Honor at AggieCon. It was really a big deal for them that he came. It was still on campus at the time in the MSC before the remodel.

Funfact earlier this Spring was the 50th AggieCon. It's the oldest run consecutive student convention and entirely student run (also lots of help from former students).