Marcia Lucas, the Oscar-winning film editor credited with shaping Star Wars, American Graffiti and Return of the Jedi, died Wednesday in Rancho Mirage, California, her family said, according to hollywoodreporter.com.
She was 80.
Marcia died from cancer, according to a family statement released May 29. The statement described her as “a brilliant storyteller” and “a trailblazer for women in film,” adding that her influence on the industry was “indelible.”
A California native, Marcia began her career through the Motion Picture Editors Guild apprenticeship program and later worked as an assistant to editor Verna Fields. While with Fields, she met George Lucas, then a film student at the University of Southern California. The pair married in 1969.
Marcia served as assistant editor on George Lucas’s directorial debut, THX 1138, released in 1971. She went on to co-edit American Graffiti with Fields, earning her first Oscar nomination for best film editing in 1974.
She won the Academy Award for best film editing in 1978 for Star Wars, sharing the prize with Paul Hirsch and Richard Chew. The film received six Oscars total, including visual effects and score. In a 1977 review, The Hollywood Reporter called the editing “perfectly paced.”
George Lucas later credited her with assembling the film’s complex final battle sequence, telling Rolling Stone in 1977 that she spent eight weeks cutting 40,000 feet of footage into the dogfight. She also suggested that Darth Vader kill Obi-Wan Kenobi to raise the stakes, a change the director adopted.
Beyond her work with George Lucas, she edited Martin Scorsese’s Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore in 1974 and supervised the edit on Taxi Driver and New York, New York.
Marcia edited Return of the Jedi, released in May 1983. She and George Lucas divorced that year. The director said she handled the film’s “dying and crying” emotional scenes. It was her final credited project.
Speaking to Time Magazine in 1983, Marcia Lucas said, “I have an innate ability to take good material and make it better, and to take bad material and make it fair.”
She later married and divorced artist Tom Rodrigues.
At the time of Star Wars’ 1977 release, few women held lead editing roles on major studio films. Her Oscar win made her one of the earliest women to receive the award for best film editing, helping to expand opportunities for women in post-production.
She is survived by daughters Amanda Lucas and Amy Soper, and her grandchildren.
•Featured image: Marica Lucas/Frazer Harrison/Getty Images
