Revisit John Wayne’s secret cameo in ‘Star Wars’
There are some actors who become so inextricably tied to the genres that made them famous that it becomes impossible to see them in any other type of movie. Just consider the action star Bruce Willis or the serial wacky comedian Jim Carrey, but no other actor may better embody this truth than John Wayne, the king of the old American western that thrived in the early days of Hollywood supremacy.
But if you think Wayne was only about westerns or guns, then you are only a little off the mark. It wasn’t just bullets he liked to shoot, but also lasers, as he took on a role in a sci-fi great.
The actor has never publically professed his love for science-fiction or fantasy worlds, nor would you expect to find him in one. It comes as a huge surprise, then, to discover that the actor actually did feature in a Star Wars project, albeit not in the way you might expect.
When A New Hope was released, the studios had little faith in its success. Indeed, there are numerous reports from some of the filmmakers and cast that they had low expectations of the final product. Nevertheless, the project defined what we now know as a blockbuster movie, immediately breaking box-office records and launching one of the most successful, popular and profitable franchises in the history of media entertainment. It also proved to be, technically, the last film Wayne was in.
During a discussion with the Official Star Wars Blog at the 2007 Star Wars Celebration, sound designer Ben Burtt explained how the controversial actor was involved and how he had only realised this 30 decades later. Tasked with finding the right sound for one of the alien characters in the movie, Burtt used a modulated buzzing sound to fit the character’s insect-like appearance. It was only much later, however, that he realised just what exactly the buzzing sound was.
Burtt recalls: “We had that character that looked kind of like a mosquito from the first Star Wars that we found we needed a sound for. I was wondering back a few months ago how I did it – because I keep notes and tapes – and I discovered it was an electronic buzzing which had come off of my synthesiser that was triggered by a human voice.”
Digging a little deeper, Burtt finally found the surprising source of the buzzing: “I listened to it and realised it was John Wayne. I had found some loop lines in the trash from the studio that had been thrown away. So the buzzing was triggered by some dialogue like ‘all right, what are you doin’ in this town?’ or something like that.”
Whilst the archetypal American hero never actually set foot on the set of Star Wars nor brought his distinct gait and gruff voice to the table, he nonetheless managed to find a way into the multi-billion dollar franchise, making him one of the more unusual cameos in the franchise. He’s played outlaws, Irish boxers and war generals; now voicing ‘Garindian’, the insectoid Imperial Spy of Tatooine, can be added to Wayne’s resume.
You can see, or rather hear, Wayne’s cameo in the clip below.
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