Obituary: Peter Mayhew, actor who played Chewbacca in Star Wars

Died: April 30 2019

PETER Mayhew, who has died of a heart attack aged 74, was famous for only one role, in which you never see his face, or hear his voice, and which was dubbed using a mixture of roars and growls from lions, tigers, bears, camels, badgers and, in quieter non-roaring moments, rabbits.

Mayhew was working as a porter in a London hospital when he was recruited by George Lucas because of his height to play Chewbacca, Han Solo’s loyal and furry co-pilot in the original 1977 Star Wars.

Mayhew reprised the role in the other two other films in the original series The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Return of the Jedi (1983) and again in two of the more recent films, although he shared the wookie costume with the Finnish former basketball player Joonas Suotamo in The Force Awakens (2015), as his health was deteriorating by then.

Although Mayhew’s features were hidden behind elaborate make-up and his voice was never heard, Chewbacca’s bewildered tilt of the head was very much Mayhew’s and helped endear him to fans. He said he was used to tilting his head when passing through doorways so he did not bang it on the lintel.

Mayhew was 7 feet 3 inches tall. His height did lead to health problems. He was confined to a wheelchair before a double knee replacement in 2013. He revealed at one fan convention that he had spent almost $1 million on operations.

He was a regular at conventions for many years charging $50 a time for autographs. “Convention life is wonderful,” he said. “I like to be amongst the fans, getting the feedback.” He said he had formed lasting friendships with other actors at conventions, some of whom rely on income from autographs and photographs, and also with some of the fans.

The son of a policeman, Mayhew was born in London in 1944. He had an overactive pituitary gland leading to overproduction of growth hormone, for which he received treatment in his teens. He was working as a porter at King’s College Hospital in London when his appearance in a newspaper article about large feet gave him his chance in the movies.

Star Wars was not his first film. He had been inside the Minotaur costume for live-action sequences in Ray Harryhausen’s Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger (1977).

Lucas had intended to cast body-builder and Green Cross Code Man David Prowse as Chewbacca, but Prowse ended up as Darth Vader (though James Earl Jones provided the voice) and George Lucas wanted someone even taller as Chewbacca.

“George walks in, I stand up, and he says, ‘Hmmm, I think we’ve found him,” Mayhew recalled. He said that the original design was more like a Neanderthal man, though Lucas himself maintained that the hirsute, gentle giant was inspired by the sight of his dog sitting in the passenger seat of his car, patiently looking out of the window. (Chewbacca was usually gentle although he could be fierce when crossed.)

Han Solo (Harrison Ford) and Chewbacca, affectionately known as Chewie, are smugglers who become involved with Jedi master Obi-Wan Kenobi and the young Luke Skywalker when they give them a lift in their antiquated spacecraft the Millennium Falcon. Chewie persuades Han that they should join the Rebel Alliance against Darth Vader’s nasties.

The role was originally much smaller, but Lucas expanded it, adding new scenes even after filming had begun, and Chewbacca proved one of the most popular characters in the film. He featured prominently in the early sequels and was back in Revenge of the Sith (2005) more than 20 years later.

At one stage crowds of over 100,000 fans would turn up at conventions Mayhew was attending. “It was frightening,” he said. “He’s loved by the kids. All of the families who are there have had a teddy bear or a security blanket.”

Suotamo shared the role of Chewbacca in The Force Awakens and then took over in subsequent films, though Mayhew was credited as “Chewbacca consultant” on The Last Jedi (2017). In a bitchy industry, he was genuinely popular with cast and crew.

He settled in Texas with his wife Angie and their three children, who survive him, and he and Angie co-wrote two picture books for children, Growing Up Giant – The True Story of Peter Mayhew who Grew Up to be Chewbacca in Star Wars (2010) and My Favourite Giant (2011), about bullying.

Mayhew became a naturalised American citizen in 2005 and joked that he “did not get a medal at that ceremony either”, a reference to the fact that Han and Luke get medals from Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher) at the end of Star Wars, while Chewie did not.

Asked why Chewbacca did not get a medal, Mayhew said: “I think it was one of two reasons – one, they didn’t have enough money to buy me a medal, or two, Carrie couldn’t reach my neck.”

BRIAN PENDREIGH