Star Wars was a massive project, even when it was just the first movie. So many people helped to bring the ‘Galaxy, far, far, away’ without receiving any of the acclaims that George Lucas or the main cast did. One of those people, Tony Dyson, has now passed away.
The name probably won’t be familiar, but Tony Dyson’s contribution to Star Wars is on par with the core cast; he’s the guy who built R2-D2.
Professor Dyson was the owner of the White Horse toy company and was hired to create eight separate R2-D2 models for the film series (including the one they used when R2 gets launched out of the bog on Dagobah) along with the master moulds.
According to the BBC News website Tony Dyson died on the Maltese island of Gozo;
“The 68-year-old Briton was found by police after a neighbour called them, concerned his door was open. He is thought to have died of natural causes. A post-mortem is being carried out to determine the cause of death.”
Tony Dyson also did work for Superman II, Moonraker and was even nominated for an Emmy for his Special Effects Supervision.
