Baker was 3-feet, 8-inches tall and grew up in Birmingham in the UK. He shot to global name recognition with Star Wars in 1977.
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Baker originated the role of the blue and white droid in the 1977 film and reprised it across a number of different platforms including The Muppet Show, the Disney ride Star Tours, and even the infamous Star Wars Holiday Special. He also appeared in films such as Flash Gordon, The Elephant Man, Time Bandits, The Goonies and other notable films throughout the 1980s and 1990s.
The Guardian spoke to Baker’s niece, Abigail Shield, who shared her own memories of her uncle and celebrated his wonderful contributions to film history.
“We’re all very proud of what he achieved in his lifetime”, she said. He did extremely well in his life. He was very ill for the last few years so we had been expecting it. I personally met him twice and I found him to be one of the sweetest and kindest celebrities you could ever encounter.
She wrote in to him saying that she wanted to meet him. “He was very poorly for a long time”.
This weekend brings some sad news for Star Wars fans.
However Anthony Daniels, who played R2-D2’s on-screen friend C3PO and with whom Baker had a frosty relationship dating back decades, said he was never actually on set.
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“Luckily he did manage to meet George Lucas again when he came to Manchester”.
