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Lucas, George

American Screenwriter, Producer, and Director 1944-

Born on May 14, 1944, in Modesto, California, film director George Lucas studied film at the University of Southern California. His first feature film was THX 1138. The executive producer was Francis Ford Coppola, who would later gain fame directing The Godfather trilogy and Apocalypse Now. In 1973 Lucas cowrote and directed American Graffiti, which won a Golden Globe and garnered five Academy Award nominations.

Within the space fraternity Lucas is recognized for the Star Wars movies. Star Wars, the first in the initial trilogy of tales about life and conflict in the universe, was released in 1977. The film broke box-office records and won seven Academy Awards. Lucas went on to write The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Return of the Jedi (1983), and was executive producer for both. Lucas worked for twenty years developing a prequel to the trilogy, Episode 1: The Phantom Menace, released in 1999, for which he was writer, director, and executive producer. A second prequel, Attack of the Clones, was released in May, 2002.

Lucas sees himself as a storyteller and professes not to be particularly keen on technology. He admits that he has had to invent the necessary technology to tell his tales and believes the mark of a talented filmmaker is how well one works within the limitations imposed by the available technology.