George Lucas

Lucas grew up over his father's stationery store in Modesto and wanted to be a racecar driver, not a filmmaker — his father wanted him behind the store counter. Both plans ended on June 12, 1962, days before his high school graduation, when another car broadsided his souped-up Fiat Bianchina and flipped it several times. The seatbelt snapped and threw him clear, the only reason he survived the lung injuries that followed. He enrolled at Modesto Junior College, then transferred to USC's film school, where he became friends with Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese. A student short he made there, about a man fleeing a mechanized society, won first prize at the National Student Film Festival in 1967.

He co-founded American Zoetrope with Francis Ford Coppola in 1969 and expanded his student film into THX 1138, a critical success and a financial failure in 1971. American Graffiti, in 1973, earned five Academy Award nominations and made him bankable enough to try something stranger: an original space opera every studio but 20th Century Fox turned down. Rather than negotiate a higher salary, he kept the merchandising and sequel rights to Star Wars, a decision that ended up worth many times his 150,000-dollar director's fee. He built Industrial Light & Magic to create its effects and Lucasfilm to hold everything else, then returned two decades later to direct three prequels, from 1999 to 2005, that fans argued over for years even as they filled theaters.

His editor on the original trilogy was his wife, Marcia Lucas, whose cutting of Star Wars won her an Academy Award in 1977 — a credit far fewer fans can name than his. The pressure of that production, and of the two sequels that followed, wore the marriage down, and they divorced in 1983. He kept the company. She left the industry not long after, and the empire built on the trilogy she helped shape has, in the decades since, given her comparatively little of the credit. The prequels he wrote and directed alone from 1999 to 2005 drew a harsher reception from longtime fans and critics than anything in the original run, even as they sold more tickets.

He sold Lucasfilm to Disney in 2012 for 4.05 billion dollars in cash and stock, becoming the company's second-largest shareholder, and later described the sale itself as feeling like a divorce. He married the investor Mellody Hobson in 2013 and, through the Giving Pledge, has committed at least half his fortune to philanthropy — mainly education and, since 2018, the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, an 11-acre building in Los Angeles now expected to open on September 22, 2026, after four straight delays. His personal art collection, much of it destined for the museum, is valued near a billion dollars on its own.

George Lucas's life against the full span of the corpus — the fading end marks a life still in progress.

• THX 1138 film
  A financial failure that proved his visual instincts 1971
• American Graffiti film
  Five Academy Award nominations 1973
• Star Wars film
  Turned down by every studio but Fox 1977
• Lucasfilm company 1971
• Industrial Light & Magic company
  Built to create effects no studio could supply 1975
• Lucas Museum of Narrative Art building
  Expected to open September 22, 2026, after four delays 2026

• June 12, 1962 aged 18 Survives a near-fatal car crash days before high school graduation A snapped seatbelt threw him clear of the wreck.
• 1967 aged ~23 Graduates from USC's film school A student short won first prize at the National Student Film Festival.
• 1969 aged ~25 Co-founds American Zoetrope with Francis Ford Coppola
• 1971 aged ~27 THX 1138 is released and fails commercially
• 1973 aged ~29 American Graffiti earns five Oscar nominations
• 1977 aged ~33 Star Wars opens, and he keeps the merchandising rights
• 1983 aged ~39 Divorces Marcia Lucas after the original trilogy wraps
• 2012 aged ~68 Sells Lucasfilm to Disney for 4.05 billion dollars
• June 22, 2013 aged 69 Marries Mellody Hobson at Skywalker Ranch

• Francis Ford Coppola b. 1939
  Director and producer whose landmark films helped define the New Hollywood era and modern American epic filmmaking. co-founded American Zoetrope with him
• Steven Spielberg b. 1946
  Director and producer whose blockbusters and dramas have defined American cinema for five decades. USC friend and frequent collaborator
• Harrison Ford b. 1942
  Iconic actor whose roles as Han Solo and Indiana Jones made him a global superstar for decades. cast as Han Solo and Indiana Jones
• Walt Disney 1901–1966
  Animator and business magnate who created Mickey Mouse and built the world's largest entertainment empire. bought Lucasfilm