33 with 22 posters participating
Enlarge/ Jeremy Bulloch attends a photo call at the “Star Wars Identities: The Exhibition” on July 26, 2017 in London.
Jeremy Bulloch, the original actor behind the role of famed Star Wars bounty hunter Boba Fett, has passed away at the age of 75, his family confirmed via a Facebook post. Though the post is currently labeled “private,” the information was publicly confirmed on Thursday by Daniel Logan, arguably best known as the child actor who portrayed Boba in the Star Wars prequel films.
The Facebook post, as reviewed by Deadline, includes statements from his family pointing to “health complications, including several years of living with Parkinson’s disease.” It also stated that Bulloch died close to his longtime home in South London. Logan’s Instagram post on the matter said he would “never forget all you’ve taught me” and “may the force be with you always.”
Bulloch’s acting history, mostly in the UK, established a certain nerd cred well before becoming Star Wars’ popular, mysterious semi-villain. He had recurring roles in the James Bond series (as the Q Branch staffer Smithers in Octopussy and For Your Eyes Only) and as multiple characters through Doctor Who’s many, many seasons on BBC1.
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While Boba Fett would debut in the Star Wars film series in 1980’s Empire Strikes Back, Bulloch introduced him to the world two years earlier as a cameo in the infamous Star Wars Holiday Special. Bulloch never voiced Fett in any Star Wars films or other media (those duties fell to the late Jason Wingreen), though he did eventually return to the series, unmasked, as Capt. Jeremoch Colton in Episode III: Revenge of the Sith.
Boba Fett’s legacy in Star Wars has been born anew in the past year thanks to the character’s original order, the Mandalorians, figuring prominently in the Disney+ series The Mandalorian. Saying more would be a spoiler for anyone not caught up on that series’ second season, but it’s arguably not surprising to figure that the Fett family might be intertwined in such a fan-service series.
The news of Bulloch’s passing follows that of David Prowse, the silent actor behind Darth Vader in the original Star Wars trilogy, who passed away last month at the age of 85.
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