George Lucas | Academy of Achievement

<!doctype html> <html lang="en-US"> <head><script type="text/javascript" src="/_static/js/bundle-playback.js?v=HxkREWBo" charset="utf-8"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="/_static/js/wombat.js?v=txqj7nKC" charset="utf-8"></script> <script>window.RufflePlayer=window.RufflePlayer||{};window.RufflePlayer.config={"autoplay":"on","unmuteOverlay":"hidden"};</script> <script type="text/javascript" src="/_static/js/ruffle/ruffle.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript"> __wm.init("https://web.archive.org/web"); __wm.wombat("https://achievement.org/achiever/george-lucas/","20200917235236","https://web.archive.org/","web","/_static/", "1600386756"); </script> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/_static/css/banner-styles.css?v=S1zqJCYt" /> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/_static/css/iconochive.css?v=3PDvdIFv" />  <meta charset="utf-8"> <meta http-equiv="x-ua-compatible" content="ie=edge"> <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1"> <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="57x57" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235236im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/apple-touch-icon-57x57.png"/> <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="114x114" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235236im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/apple-touch-icon-114x114.png"/> <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="72x72" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235236im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/apple-touch-icon-72x72.png"/> <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="144x144" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235236im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/apple-touch-icon-144x144.png"/> <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="60x60" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235236im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/apple-touch-icon-60x60.png"/> <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="120x120" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235236im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/apple-touch-icon-120x120.png"/> <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="76x76" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235236im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/apple-touch-icon-76x76.png"/> <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="152x152" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235236im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/apple-touch-icon-152x152.png"/> <link rel="icon" type="image/png" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235236im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/favicon-196x196.png" sizes="196x196"/> <link rel="icon" type="image/png" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235236im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/favicon-96x96.png" sizes="96x96"/> <link rel="icon" type="image/png" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235236im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/favicon-32x32.png" sizes="32x32"/> <link rel="icon" type="image/png" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235236im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/favicon-16x16.png" sizes="16x16"/> <link rel="icon" type="image/png" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235236im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/favicon-128.png" sizes="128x128"/> <meta name="application-name" content="Academy of Achievement"/> <meta name="msapplication-TileColor" content="#000000"/> <meta name="msapplication-TileImage" content="https://achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/mstile-144x144.png"/> <meta name="msapplication-square70x70logo" content="https://achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/mstile-70x70.png"/> <meta name="msapplication-square150x150logo" content="https://achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/mstile-150x150.png"/> <meta name="msapplication-wide310x150logo" content="https://achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/mstile-310x150.png"/> <meta name="msapplication-square310x310logo" content="https://achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/mstile-310x310.png"/> <link href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235236cs_/https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Source+Sans+Pro:400,600,400italic,600italic,700,700italic&display=swap" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css">  <title>George Lucas | Academy of Achievement</title> <meta name="description" content=""If somebody gave me a hundred feet of film, I made a movie out of it." When George Lucas was attending USC Film School he didn't even need a hundred feet. While still a student, he turned 32 feet of 16 millimeter film into a one-minute animated short that not only won awards at festivals nationwide, but set a new standard for animated films. He's been making motion picture history ever since, creating many of the most popular films in motion picture history, including the phenomenally successful Star Wars and Indiana Jones films. For over 40 years, George Lucas has served as Chairman of the Board of Lucasfilm Ltd., parent company of LucasArts Entertainment Company and Lucas Digital Ltd. Lucasfilm's THX division has changed the way we hear films in movie theaters and at home. LucasArts Entertainment Company is a leading international developer of entertainment software. Lucas Digital Ltd., which includes Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) and Skywalker Sound, is the leading visual effects and post-production company in the industry. In 2012, he sold the company to The Walt Disney Company for a reported price of $4.05 billion. No man comes as close to representing the art, technology, and business of the movie industry as George Lucas. His clarity of vision as storyteller and mythmaker, his zeal for innovation, and his leadership in forging a new relationship between entertainment and technology, has revolutionized the art of motion pictures."/> <meta name="robots" content="index, follow"/> <meta name="googlebot" content="index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1"/> <meta name="bingbot" content="index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1"/> <link rel="canonical" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/george-lucas/"/> <meta property="og:locale" content="en_US"/> <meta property="og:type" content="article"/> <meta property="og:title" content="George Lucas | Academy of Achievement"/> <meta property="og:description" content="<p class="inputTextFirst">"If somebody gave me a hundred feet of film, I made a movie out of it."</p> <p class="inputText">When George Lucas was attending USC Film School he didn't even need a hundred feet. While still a student, he turned 32 feet of 16 millimeter film into a one-minute animated short that not only won awards at festivals nationwide, but set a new standard for animated films. He's been making motion picture history ever since, creating many of the most popular films in motion picture history, including the phenomenally successful <i>Star Wars </i>and <i>Indiana Jones </i>films.</p> <p class="inputText">For over 40 years, George Lucas has served as Chairman of the Board of Lucasfilm Ltd., parent company of LucasArts Entertainment Company and Lucas Digital Ltd. Lucasfilm's THX division has changed the way we hear films in movie theaters and at home. LucasArts Entertainment Company is a leading international developer of entertainment software. Lucas Digital Ltd., which includes Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) and Skywalker Sound, is the leading visual effects and post-production company in the industry. In 2012, he sold the company to The Walt Disney Company for a reported price of $4.05 billion.</p> <p class="inputText">No man comes as close to representing the art, technology, and business of the movie industry as George Lucas. His clarity of vision as storyteller and mythmaker, his zeal for innovation, and his leadership in forging a new relationship between entertainment and technology, has revolutionized the art of motion pictures.</p>"/> <meta property="og:url" content="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/george-lucas/"/> <meta property="og:site_name" content="Academy of Achievement"/> <meta property="article:modified_time" content="2019-11-12T21:28:40+00:00"/> <meta property="og:image" content="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235236im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/LUCAS-2-Feature-Image-2800x1120.jpg"/> <meta property="og:image:width" content="2800"/> <meta property="og:image:height" content="1120"/> <meta name="twitter:card" content="summary"/> <meta name="twitter:creator" content="@achievers1961"/> <meta name="twitter:site" content="@achievers1961"/> <script type="application/ld+json" class="yoast-schema-graph">{"@context":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235236/https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/#organization","name":"Academy of Achievement","url":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/","sameAs":["https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235236/https://www.linkedin.com/company/american-academy-of-achievement","https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235236/https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChe_87uh1H-NIMf3ndTjPFw","https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235236/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academy_of_Achievement","https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235236/https://twitter.com/achievers1961"],"logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/#logo","inLanguage":"en-US","url":"/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/12.png","width":1200,"height":630,"caption":"Academy of Achievement"},"image":{"@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/#logo"}},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/#website","url":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/","name":"Academy of Achievement","description":"A museum of living history","publisher":{"@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/search/{search_term_string}","query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/george-lucas/#primaryimage","inLanguage":"en-US","url":"/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/LUCAS-2-Feature-Image-2800x1120.jpg","width":2800,"height":1120},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/george-lucas/#webpage","url":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/george-lucas/","name":"George Lucas | Academy of Achievement","isPartOf":{"@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/george-lucas/#primaryimage"},"datePublished":"2016-07-25T03:41:32+00:00","dateModified":"2019-11-12T21:28:40+00:00","description":"\"If somebody gave me a hundred feet of film, I made a movie out of it.\" When George Lucas was attending USC Film School he didn't even need a hundred feet. 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role="document"> <div class="content"> <main class="main"> <div class="feature-area__container"> <header class="feature-area feature-area--has-image ratio-container ratio-container--feature"> <figure class="feature-box"> <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image feature-area__image" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/LUCAS-2-Feature-Image-2800x1120.jpg [(max-width:544px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/07/LUCAS-2-Feature-Image-2800x1120-1400x560.jpg [(max-width:992px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/07/LUCAS-2-Feature-Image-2800x1120.jpg"></div> <div class="display--table"> <div class="display--table-cell"> <figcaption class="feature-area__text ratio-container__text container"> <div class="feature-area__text-inner text-white"> <h2 class="serif-8 feature-area__text-subhead back"><a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever">All achievers</a></h2> <h1 class="serif-1 entry-title feature-area__text-headline">George Lucas</h1> <h5 class="sans-6 feature-area__blurb">Creator of <i>Star Wars</i></h5> </div> </figcaption> </div> </div> </figure> </header> </div>  <nav class="in-page-nav row fixedsticky"> <ul class="nav text-xs-center clearfix" role="tablist"> <li class="nav-item col-xs-3"> <a class="nav-link active" data-toggle="tab" href="#biography" role="tab" data-gtm-category="tab" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever Biography">Biography</a> </li> <li class="nav-item col-xs-3"> <a class="nav-link" data-toggle="tab" href="#profile" role="tab" data-gtm-category="tab" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever Profile">Profile</a> </li> <li class="nav-item col-xs-3"> <a class="nav-link" data-toggle="tab" href="#interview" role="tab" data-gtm-category="tab" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever Interview">Interview</a> </li> <li class="nav-item col-xs-3"> <a class="nav-link" data-toggle="tab" href="#gallery" role="tab" data-gtm-category="tab" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever Gallery">Gallery</a> </li> </ul> </nav> <article class="post-2669 achiever type-achiever status-publish has-post-thumbnail hentry careers-entrepreneur careers-filmmaker"> <div class="entry-content container clearfix">  <div class="tab-content"> <div class="tab-pane active" id="biography" role="tabpanel"> <section class="achiever--biography"> <div class="banner clearfix"> <div class="banner--single clearfix"> <div class="col-lg-8 col-lg-offset-2"> <div class="banner__image__container"> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235236/https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/what-it-takes/id1025864075?mt=2" target="_blank"> <figure class="ratio-container ratio-container--square bg-black"> <img class="lazyload banner__image" data-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/lucas_WhatItTakes_256x256-190x190.jpg" alt=""/> </figure> </a> </div> <div class="banner__text__container"> <h3 class="serif-3 banner__headline"> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235236/https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/what-it-takes/id1025864075?mt=2" target="_blank"> Listen to this achiever on <i>What It Takes</i> </a> </h3> <p class="sans-6 banner__text m-b-0"><i>What It Takes</i> is an audio podcast produced by the American Academy of Achievement featuring intimate, revealing conversations with influential leaders in the diverse fields of endeavor: public service, science and exploration, sports, technology, business, arts and humanities, and justice.</p> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="row"> <header class="editorial-article__header col-md-8 col-md-offset-2 text-xs-center"> <i class="icon-icon_bio text-brand-primary"></i> <h3 class="serif-3 quote-marks">My first six years in the business were hopeless. A lot of times I'd say, 'Why am I doing this?'</h3> </header> </div> <div class="row"> <aside class="col-md-4 sidebar clearfix"> <h2 class="serif-3 p-b-1">Cinematic Phenomenon</h2> <div class="col-xs-12 sidebar--chunk p-b-2"> <dt class="serif-7">Date of Birth</dt> <dd class="sans-2"> May 14, 1944 </dd> </div> </aside> <article class="editorial-article col-md-8"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body data-rsssl="1"><figure id="attachment_16147" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-16147" style="width: 1837px" class="wp-caption alignright"><noscript><img class="wp-image-16147 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235236im_/https://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/GettyImages-51064520_master.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="wp-image-16147 size-full lazyload" alt="George and Marcia Lucas were married from 1969 to 1983. They met while George Lucas was attending film school at the University of Southern California. In 1977, Marcia earned the Academy Award for Best Film Editing for <i>Star Wars</i>. (Photo By Julian Wasser/Getty Images)" width="1837" height="2780" data-sizes="(max-width: 1837px) 100vw, 1837px" data-srcset="/web/20200917235236im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/GettyImages-51064520_master.jpg 1837w, /web/20200917235236im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/GettyImages-51064520_master-251x380.jpg 251w, /web/20200917235236im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/GettyImages-51064520_master-502x760.jpg 502w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235236/https://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/GettyImages-51064520_master.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-16147" class="wp-caption-text">George and Marcia Lucas were married from 1969 to 1983. They met while George Lucas was attending film school at the University of Southern California. In 1977, Marcia earned the Academy Award for Best Film Editing for <i>Star Wars</i>. (Photo By Julian Wasser and Getty Images)</figcaption></figure> <p>George Lucas was born in Modesto, California. The son of a stationery store owner, he was raised on a walnut ranch, and attended Modesto Junior College before enrolling in the University of Southern California film school. As a student at USC, Lucas made several short films, including <em>Electronic Labyrinth: THX-1138: 4EB,</em> which took first prize at the 1967-68 National Student Film Festival.</p> <p>In 1967, Warner Brothers awarded him a scholarship to observe the filming of <em>Finian’s Rainbow, </em>directed by UCLA grad Francis Ford Coppola. The following year, Lucas worked as Coppola’s assistant on <em>The Rain People </em>and made a short film entitled <em>Film Maker </em>about the directing of the movie.</p> <p>Lucas and Coppola shared a common vision of starting an independent film production company where a community of writers, producers, and directors could share ideas. In 1969, the two filmmakers moved to Northern California, where they founded American Zoetrope. The company’s first project was Lucas’s full-length version of <em>THX:1138.</em> In 1971, Coppola went into production for <em>The Godfather,</em> and Lucas formed his own company, Lucasfilm Ltd.</p> <figure id="attachment_39225" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-39225" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-39225 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235236im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/wp-GettyImages-607393720.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-39225 lazyload" alt="" width="2280" height="2285" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20200917235236im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/wp-GettyImages-607393720.jpg 2280w, /web/20200917235236im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/wp-GettyImages-607393720-190x190.jpg 190w, /web/20200917235236im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/wp-GettyImages-607393720-380x380.jpg 380w, /web/20200917235236im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/wp-GettyImages-607393720-758x760.jpg 758w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235236/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/wp-GettyImages-607393720.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-39225" class="wp-caption-text">George Lucas and Maggie McOmie on the set of <em>THX 1138, </em>Lucas’ directorial debut back in 1971. The film, produced by Francis Ford Coppola, brings to us a dystopian future world where the human population is controlled by a police force of robots and subjected to drugs that subdue all emotions. Based on a student film by Lucas himself, it features Robert Duvall as the main protagonist and titular character. (Sunset Boulevard/Corbis via Getty Images)</figcaption></figure> <p>In 1973, Lucas co-wrote and directed <em>American Graffiti. </em>The film won the Golden Globe, the New York Film Critics’ and National Society of Film Critics’ awards, and garnered five Academy Award nominations. Four years later, Lucas wrote and directed <em>Star Wars</em> — a film which broke all box office records and earned seven Academy Awards. This intergalactic tale of good versus evil combined cutting-edge technology with good old-fashioned storytelling, and movies haven’t been the same since. Lucas went on to write the stories for <em>The Empire Strikes Back</em> and <em>Return of the Jedi</em>, which he also executive-produced. In 1980, he was the executive producer of <em>Raiders of the Lost Ark</em>, directed by Steven Spielberg, which won five Academy Awards. He was also the co-executive producer and creator of the story for <em>Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.</em></p> <figure id="attachment_39227" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-39227" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-39227 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235236im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/wp-PAR66261.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-39227 lazyload" alt="" width="2280" height="3555" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20200917235236im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/wp-PAR66261.jpg 2280w, /web/20200917235236im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/wp-PAR66261-244x380.jpg 244w, /web/20200917235236im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/wp-PAR66261-487x760.jpg 487w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235236/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/wp-PAR66261.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-39227" class="wp-caption-text">1972: George Lucas on the set of his second feature film, <em>American Graffiti</em>, filmed in and around the Greater Bay Area of Northern California. The coming-of-age comedy-drama film was directed and co-written by George Lucas and was an homage to the memories of his own teenage years in Modesto, California. (Dennis Stock / Magnum)</figcaption></figure> <p>In the mid-1980s, Lucas concentrated on constructing Skywalker Ranch, a facility custom-designed by Lucas to accommodate the creative, technical, and administrative needs of his companies. Assembled, parcel by parcel, since 1978, the 4,700-acre Skywalker Ranch, located on the secluded Lucas Valley Road near Nicasio, California, cost George Lucas $100 million. Skywalker Ranch includes a 150,000-square-foot post-production and music recording facility as well as offices used for the research and development of new technologies in editing, audio, and multimedia. The Ranch, named after the <em>Star Wars</em> character Luke Skywalker, was completed in 1985.</p> <figure id="attachment_15208" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-15208" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><noscript><img class="wp-image-15208 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235236im_/https://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Lucas-and-Ford_photofest.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="wp-image-15208 size-full lazyload" alt="George Lucas and motion picture actor Harrison Ford on the set of <em>Raiders of the Lost Ark</em>, 1981. (PhotoFest)" width="2280" height="1812" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20200917235236im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Lucas-and-Ford_photofest.jpg 2280w, /web/20200917235236im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Lucas-and-Ford_photofest-380x302.jpg 380w, /web/20200917235236im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Lucas-and-Ford_photofest-760x604.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235236/https://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Lucas-and-Ford_photofest.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-15208" class="wp-caption-text">George Lucas and motion picture actor Harrison Ford on the movie set of <em>Raiders of the Lost Ark</em>, 1981. (PhotoFest)</figcaption></figure> <p>In 1986, Lucas executive-produced Disneyland’s 3-D musical space adventure <em>Captain Eo,</em> which was directed by Francis Coppola and starred Michael Jackson. <em>Captain Eo</em> was shown in a theater uniquely designed by Lucas, Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), and Disney for the 17-minute spectacular. He was also the creator of <em>Star Tours</em>, combining the technology of a flight simulator with ILM special effects — making it the most popular attraction at Disneyland.</p> <figure id="attachment_19809" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-19809" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-19809 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235236im_/https://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/wp-Lauren-Ralph-and-Lucas-George-1989-Summit.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-19809 lazyload" alt="Fashion designer Ralph Lauren and motion picture director George Lucas: Two of the American Academy of Achievement's guests of honor at the 1989 Banquet of the Golden Plate ceremonies in San Francisco, California." width="2280" height="1439" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20200917235236im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/wp-Lauren-Ralph-and-Lucas-George-1989-Summit.jpg 2280w, /web/20200917235236im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/wp-Lauren-Ralph-and-Lucas-George-1989-Summit-380x240.jpg 380w, /web/20200917235236im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/wp-Lauren-Ralph-and-Lucas-George-1989-Summit-760x480.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235236/https://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/wp-Lauren-Ralph-and-Lucas-George-1989-Summit.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-19809" class="wp-caption-text">Famed fashion designer Ralph Lauren and motion picture director George Lucas: two of the American Academy of Achievement’s guests of honor at the 1989 Banquet of the Golden Plate ceremonies in San Francisco, California.</figcaption></figure> <p>His next project was the adventure-fantasy film <em>Willow</em>. Based on an original story by Lucas, the film was directed by Ron Howard and executive-produced by Lucas. <em>Willow</em> was released in 1988. Also in 1988, Lucas executive-produced <em>Tucker: The Man and His Dream,</em> directed by Francis Coppola. The following year, Lucas served as executive producer for <em>Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.</em></p> <figure id="attachment_16149" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-16149" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="wp-image-16149 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235236im_/https://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/GettyImages-143827135_master.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="wp-image-16149 size-full lazyload" alt="Director George Lucas photographed in 1998 at Industrial Light & Magic in Marin County, California. (Photo by Blake Little/Contour by Getty Images)" width="2280" height="2277" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20200917235236im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/GettyImages-143827135_master.jpg 2280w, /web/20200917235236im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/GettyImages-143827135_master-190x190.jpg 190w, /web/20200917235236im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/GettyImages-143827135_master-380x380.jpg 380w, /web/20200917235236im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/GettyImages-143827135_master-760x760.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235236/https://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/GettyImages-143827135_master.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-16149" class="wp-caption-text">Director George Lucas photographed in 1998 at Industrial Light & Magic in Marin County, California. (Blake Little)</figcaption></figure> <p>The company established by George Lucas in 1971 has today evolved into three entities. Lucas Digital Ltd. encompasses Industrial Light & Magic and Skywalker Sound, the award-winning visual effects, television commercial production, and audio post-production businesses. ILM has played a key role in over half of the top 15 box office hits of all time, and was honored in 1994 with an Academy Award for its achievements in <em>Forrest Gump,</em> which marked a technological breakthrough for the film industry.</p> <figure id="attachment_16172" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-16172" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="wp-image-16172 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235236im_/https://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/wp-GettyImages-143827140_master.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="wp-image-16172 size-full lazyload" alt="Director George Lucas photographed in 1998 at Skywalker Ranch in Marin County, California. (Photo by Blake Little/Contour by Getty Images)" width="2280" height="2277" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20200917235236im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/wp-GettyImages-143827140_master.jpg 2280w, /web/20200917235236im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/wp-GettyImages-143827140_master-190x190.jpg 190w, /web/20200917235236im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/wp-GettyImages-143827140_master-380x380.jpg 380w, /web/20200917235236im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/wp-GettyImages-143827140_master-760x760.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235236/https://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/wp-GettyImages-143827140_master.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-16172" class="wp-caption-text">Director George Lucas photographed in 1998 at Skywalker Ranch in Marin County, California. (Blake Little/Getty)</figcaption></figure> <p>LucasArts Entertainment Company is a leading international developer and publisher of entertainment software, having won critical acclaim with more than 100 industry awards for excellence, consistently charting in top ten lists of bestselling software. Lucasfilm Ltd. includes all of Lucas’s feature film and television production, and the business activities of Licensing and the THX Group. The THX division was created to define and maintain the highest quality standards in motion picture theaters and home theater systems.</p> <figure id="attachment_30866" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-30866" style="width: 2250px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-30866 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235236im_/https://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/wp-Lucas-George-and-Morgan-Freeman.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-30866 lazyload" alt="Morgan Freeman receives the Academy's Golden Plate Award from George Lucas" width="2250" height="3355" data-sizes="(max-width: 2250px) 100vw, 2250px" data-srcset="/web/20200917235236im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/wp-Lucas-George-and-Morgan-Freeman.jpg 2250w, /web/20200917235236im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/wp-Lucas-George-and-Morgan-Freeman-255x380.jpg 255w, /web/20200917235236im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/wp-Lucas-George-and-Morgan-Freeman-510x760.jpg 510w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235236/https://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/wp-Lucas-George-and-Morgan-Freeman.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-30866" class="wp-caption-text">Awards Council member George Lucas presents the American Academy of Achievement’s Golden Plate Award to award-winning actor and narrator Morgan Freeman at the 1998 Achievement Summit in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.</figcaption></figure> <p>Additionally, George Lucas serves as Chairman of the Board of The George Lucas Educational Foundation, a tax-exempt charitable organization devoted to realizing the vision of a technology-enriched educational system of the future. In 1992, after numerous awards, George Lucas was honored with the Irving G. Thalberg Award by the Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.</p> <figure id="attachment_15220" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-15220" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><noscript><img class="wp-image-15220 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235236im_/https://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Lucas_revenge-of-the-sith_photofest.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="wp-image-15220 size-full lazyload" alt="Star Wars Director George Lucas frames a scene for Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith (2005), while actor Samuel L. Jackson (as Jedi Mace Windu) looks on. (Lucasfilm Ltd./Photofest/Photographer: Merrick Morton)" width="2280" height="1558" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20200917235236im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Lucas_revenge-of-the-sith_photofest.jpg 2280w, /web/20200917235236im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Lucas_revenge-of-the-sith_photofest-380x260.jpg 380w, /web/20200917235236im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Lucas_revenge-of-the-sith_photofest-760x519.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235236/https://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Lucas_revenge-of-the-sith_photofest.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-15220" class="wp-caption-text"><em>Star Wars</em> director George Lucas frames a scene for <em>Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith</em> (2005), while actor Samuel L. Jackson (as Jedi Mace Windu) looks on. (Lucasfilm Ltd. and Photofest/Photographer: Merrick Morton)</figcaption></figure> <p>After a series of premiere screenings that raised $5.6 million for charity, the long-awaited first chapter in the <em>Star Wars</em> saga, <em>The Phantom Menace </em>opened in 1999, to record-breaking business across North America. It demolished the opening weekend box office records in 28 countries and ended the year with worldwide ticket sales of $922 million, making it the second-highest grossing film ever released. Subsequent chapters in the <em>Star Wars</em> saga, <em>Attack of the Clones,</em> and <em>Revenge of the Sith</em>, premiered in 2002 and 2005. <em>Revenge of the Sith</em> surpassed all previous box office records for a single day, for opening day, and for first weekend, taking in an estimated $303.2 million worldwide in its first four days.</p> <figure id="attachment_19032" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-19032" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="wp-image-19032 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235236im_/https://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/wp-lucas-GettyImages-163157424.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="wp-image-19032 size-full lazyload" alt="George Lucas at Skywalker Ranch — designed to accommodate the creative, technical and administrative needs of his company — in Marin County, California, April 29, 2005. (Jean-Louis Atlan/Getty Images)" width="2280" height="1520" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20200917235236im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/wp-lucas-GettyImages-163157424.jpg 2280w, /web/20200917235236im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/wp-lucas-GettyImages-163157424-380x253.jpg 380w, /web/20200917235236im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/wp-lucas-GettyImages-163157424-760x507.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235236/https://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/wp-lucas-GettyImages-163157424.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-19032" class="wp-caption-text">George Lucas at his 4,700-acre Skywalker Ranch — designed by Lucas to accommodate the creative, technical and administrative needs of his company — in Marin County, California, April 29, 2005. (Jean-Louis Atlan/Getty Images)</figcaption></figure> <p>Since the 1980s, Lucasfilm has supported an array of innovative educational initiatives. In 2006, the Lucasfilm Foundation announced a $75 million donation to his alma mater, the University of Southern California, to construct state-of-the-art education buildings for the School of Cinematic Arts. In addition, Lucasfilm has recently given the film school an additional $100 million to establish an endowment. It is the largest single donation in USC history. The following year, he founded the nonprofit Edutopia to drive innovation in education. In 2012, he sold Lucasfilm, Ltd. to the Walt Disney Company for a reported price of $4.05 billion. He has subscribed to The Giving Pledge, alongside Warren Buffet and Bill Gates, promising to give half his fortune to charity.</p> <figure id="attachment_6224" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-6224" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><noscript><img class="wp-image-6224 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235236im_/https://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/wordpress_06Academy_040.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="wp-image-6224 size-full lazyload" alt="Summit Hosts Steven Spielberg and George Lucas welcome the Academy of Achievement to Los Angeles in 2006." width="2280" height="1708" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20200917235236im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/wordpress_06Academy_040.jpg 2280w, /web/20200917235236im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/wordpress_06Academy_040-380x285.jpg 380w, /web/20200917235236im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/wordpress_06Academy_040-760x569.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235236/https://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/wordpress_06Academy_040.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-6224" class="wp-caption-text">Summit Hosts Steven Spielberg and George Lucas welcome the Academy of Achievement to Los Angeles in 2006.</figcaption></figure> <p>In June 2013, George Lucas married Mellody Hobson, President of Ariel Investments, in a ceremony at Skywalker Ranch. A second marriage for Lucas, the wedding was attended by his three adult children, and by many old friends, including Bill Moyers (who officiated), former Senator Bill Bradley, Francis Ford Coppola, Ron Howard, Quincy Jones, Steven Spielberg and Oprah Winfrey.</p> <figure id="attachment_9509" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-9509" style="width: 2040px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="wp-image-9509 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235236im_/https://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/01h_awardees_Obamas-crop.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="wp-image-9509 size-full lazyload" alt="A gala celebration of the re-opening of Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C. From Left to Right: George Lucas and his wife Mellody Hobson, First Lady Michelle Obama, Sidney Poitier and President Barack Obama, February 11, 2009. (Courtesy of Ford's Theatre Society)" width="2040" height="2040" data-sizes="(max-width: 2040px) 100vw, 2040px" data-srcset="/web/20200917235236im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/01h_awardees_Obamas-crop.jpg 2040w, /web/20200917235236im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/01h_awardees_Obamas-crop-190x190.jpg 190w, /web/20200917235236im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/01h_awardees_Obamas-crop-380x380.jpg 380w, /web/20200917235236im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/01h_awardees_Obamas-crop-760x760.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235236/https://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/01h_awardees_Obamas-crop.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-9509" class="wp-caption-text">A gala celebration of the re-opening of Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C. From left to right: George Lucas and his wife, Mellody Hobson, First Lady Michelle Obama, Sidney Poitier and President Barack Obama, February 11, 2009. George Lucas and Sidney Poitier each received the Ford’s Theatre’s Abraham Lincoln Medal at the gala ceremonies.</figcaption></figure> <p>More recently, George Lucas is in the planning stages to develop the George Lucas Museum of Narrative Art at Exposition Park in Los Angeles. The Lucas Museum <span class="_Tgc">—</span> designed by Ma Yansong, a Chinese architect known for free-flowing sculptural drama <span class="_Tgc">—</span> will enable Lucas to share his extensive collection of art and film memorabilia with the public, including materials related to the production of his own films.</p> <figure id="attachment_50483" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-50483" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-50483 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235236im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/wp-2280-book_Saturday-Evening-GPR-Ross-Lucas-Brown-154.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-50483 lazyload" alt="" width="2280" height="2850" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20200917235236im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/wp-2280-book_Saturday-Evening-GPR-Ross-Lucas-Brown-154.jpg 2280w, /web/20200917235236im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/wp-2280-book_Saturday-Evening-GPR-Ross-Lucas-Brown-154-304x380.jpg 304w, /web/20200917235236im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/wp-2280-book_Saturday-Evening-GPR-Ross-Lucas-Brown-154-608x760.jpg 608w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235236/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/wp-2280-book_Saturday-Evening-GPR-Ross-Lucas-Brown-154.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-50483" class="wp-caption-text">September 2014: Golden Plate Awards Council members George Lucas and former San Francisco Mayor Willie L. Brown, Jr. present the Academy of Achievement’s Gold Medal to musical icon Diana Ross after her performance at the Banquet of the Golden Plate during the 51st International Achievement Summit in San Francisco, California.</figcaption></figure> </body></html> <div class="clearfix"> </div> </article> </div> </section> </div> <div class="tab-pane" id="profile" role="tabpanel"> <section class="clearfix"> <header class="editorial-article__header"> <figure class="text-xs-center"> <img class="inductee-badge" src="/web/20200917235236im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/inducted-badge@2x.png" alt="Inducted Badge" width="120" height="120"/> <figcaption class="serif-3 text-brand-primary"> Inducted in 1989 </figcaption> </figure> </header> <div class="row"> <aside class="col-md-4 sidebar"> <dl class="clearfix m-b-0"> <div class="col-xs-12 sidebar--chunk p-b-2"> <dt class="serif-7">Career</dt> <dd class="sans-2"> <div><a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/#filter=.filmmaker">Filmmaker</a></div> <div><a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/#filter=.entrepreneur">Entrepreneur</a></div> </dd> </div> <div class="col-xs-12 sidebar--chunk p-b-2"> <dt class="serif-7">Date of Birth</dt> <dd class="sans-2"> May 14, 1944 </dd> </div> </dl> </aside> <article class="col-md-8 editorial-article clearfix"> <p class="inputTextFirst">“If somebody gave me a hundred feet of film, I made a movie out of it.”</p> <p class="inputText">When George Lucas was attending USC Film School he didn’t even need a hundred feet. While still a student, he turned 32 feet of 16 millimeter film into a one-minute animated short that not only won awards at festivals nationwide, but set a new standard for animated films. He’s been making motion picture history ever since, creating many of the most popular films in motion picture history, including the phenomenally successful <i>Star Wars </i>and <i>Indiana Jones </i>films.</p> <p class="inputText">For over 40 years, George Lucas has served as Chairman of the Board of Lucasfilm Ltd., parent company of LucasArts Entertainment Company and Lucas Digital Ltd. Lucasfilm’s THX division has changed the way we hear films in movie theaters and at home. LucasArts Entertainment Company is a leading international developer of entertainment software. Lucas Digital Ltd., which includes Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) and Skywalker Sound, is the leading visual effects and post-production company in the industry. In 2012, he sold the company to The Walt Disney Company for a reported price of $4.05 billion.</p> <p class="inputText">No man comes as close to representing the art, technology, and business of the movie industry as George Lucas. His clarity of vision as storyteller and mythmaker, his zeal for innovation, and his leadership in forging a new relationship between entertainment and technology, has revolutionized the art of motion pictures.</p> </article> </div> </section> </div> <div class="tab-pane" id="interview" role="tabpanel"> <section class="clearfix"> <div class="col-md-12 interview-feature-video"> <figure> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235236if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/djBSxW4PrmY?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0&start=0&end=4443&version=3" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Lucas-George-1999-MasterEdit.00_39_30_22.Still010-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Lucas-George-1999-MasterEdit.00_39_30_22.Still010-760x428.jpg"></div> <div class="video-tag sans-4"> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> <div class="video-tag__text">Watch full interview</div> </div> </div> </figure> </div> <header class="col-md-12 text-xs-center m-b-2"> <i class="icon-icon_bio text-brand-primary"></i> </header> <aside class="col-md-4 sidebar"> <h2 class="serif-3 achiever--biography-subtitle">Cinematic Phenomenon</h2> <div class="sans-2">Washington, D.C.</div> <div class="sans-2">June 19, 1999</div> </aside> <article class="editorial-article col-md-8">   <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p><strong>You had a bad auto accident as a teenager. Do you think that changed the course of your life?</strong></p> <p>George Lucas: I’m not sure. I think about that sometimes.</p> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235236if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/-hGA6DOcrXc?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Lucas-George-1999-MasterEdit.00_36_23_18.Still009-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Lucas-George-1999-MasterEdit.00_36_23_18.Still009-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>I was a terrible student in high school, and the thing that the auto accident did — and it happened just as I graduated, so I was at this sort of crossroads — but it made me apply myself more, because I realized more than anything else what a thin thread we hang on in life, and I really wanted to make something out of my life. And I was in an accident that, in theory, no one could survive. So it was like, “Well, I’m here, and every day now is an extra day. I’ve been given an extra day, so I’ve got to make the most of it.” And then the next day I began with two extra days. And I’ve sort of — you can’t help in that situation but get into a mindset like that, which is you’ve been given this gift and every single day is a gift, and I wanted to make the most of it. Before, when I was in high school, I just sort of wandered around. I wanted to be a car mechanic, and I wanted to race cars, and the idea of trying to make something out of my life wasn’t really a priority. But the accident allowed me to apply myself at school. I got great grades. Eventually I got very excited about anthropology and about social sciences and psychology, and I was able to push my photography even further and eventually discovered film and film schools.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235236if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/4-R_65q0WVY?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Lucas-George-1999-MasterEdit.00_36_39_01.Still008-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Lucas-George-1999-MasterEdit.00_36_39_01.Still008-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/keys-to-success/passion/">Passion</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>I decided to go to film school because I loved the idea of making films. I loved photography and everybody said it was a crazy thing to do because in those days nobody made it into the film business. I mean, unless you were related to somebody there was no way in. So everybody was thinking I was silly. “You’re never going to get a job.” But I wasn’t moved by that. I set the goal of getting through film school, and just then focused on getting to that level because I didn’t — you know, I didn’t know where I was going to go after that. I wanted to make documentary films, and eventually I got into the goal of — once I got to school — of making a film. One of the most telling things about film school is you’ve got a lot of students, in those days especially, it’s not quite so much today, but — wandering around saying, “Oh, I wish I could make a movie. I wish I could make a movie.” You know, “I can’t get in this class. I can’t get any this or that.” The first class I had was an animation class. It wasn’t a production class. I had a history class and an animation class. And, in the animation class they gave us one minute of film to put onto the animation camera to operate it, to see how you could move left, move right, make it go up and down. It was a test. You had certain requirements that you had to do. You had to make it go up and had to make it go down, and then the teacher would look at it and say, “Oh yes, you maneuvered this machine to do these things.” I took that one minute of film and made it into a movie, and it was a movie that won like, you know, 20 or 25 awards in every film festival in the world and kind of changed the whole animation department. Meanwhile all the other guys were going around saying, “Oh, I wish I could make a movie. I wish I was in a production class.” So then I got into another class, and it wasn’t really a production class, but I managed to get some film and I made a movie. And, I made lots of movies while in school while everybody else was running around saying, “Oh, I wish I could make a movie. I wish they’d give me some film.”</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235236if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/ZkxuiqNiDAM?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0&start=0&end=0&version=3" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/lucas-look-screengrab-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/07/lucas-look-screengrab-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>(George Lucas directed his first film while a 21-year-old student at USC film school in 1965.<em> Look at Life</em>, shot on 16-mm film, won awards for its innovative photo montage.)</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p>You could actually go to school and learn how to make movies. Suddenly everything came together in one place. All my likes, everything I actually seemed to have talent for was right there. I said, “Hey, this is it. I can do this really well. I really love to do it.” And from then on I, you know, just took off, but before that I was kind of wandering, as I think a lot of students do.</p> <p><strong>Was the original <em>Star Wars</em> a tough sell? It seems obvious now, but what was it like to get that off the ground back in the 1970s?</strong></p> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235236if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/DlMTxoGnJNI?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0&start=0&end=41&version=3" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Lucas-George-1999-MasterEdit.00_43_45_24.Still013-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Lucas-George-1999-MasterEdit.00_43_45_24.Still013-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/keys-to-success/perseverance/">Perseverance</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>George Lucas: I had a very, very difficult time with my first two pictures. And when I started working on <em>Star Wars,</em> my second film, <em>American Graffiti</em> had not come out yet. So, in the beginning it wasn’t something anybody was interested in, and I had taken it to a couple of studios, and they had turned it down. And then one studio executive saw <em>American Graffiti </em>and loved it, and I took him the proposal. He said, “You know, I don’t understand this, but I think you’re a great filmmaker, and I’m going to invest in <em>you. </em>I’m not going to invest in this project.” And that’s really how it got made.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body data-rsssl="1"><p><strong><em>Star Wars</em></strong><strong> is so far removed from a film like <em>American Graffiti.</em></strong></p> <p>George Lucas: Yeah, it was. All of my films have been very hard to understand at the script stage because they’re very different. At the time I did them they were not conventional. The executives could only think in terms of what they’d already seen. It’s hard for them to think in terms of what has never been done before.</p> <figure id="attachment_15206" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-15206" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="wp-image-15206 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235236im_/https://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Lucas-Am-Grafitti009.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="wp-image-15206 size-full lazyload" alt="Director George Lucas preparing a difficult shot for <i>American Graffiti,</i> 1973. (© LucasFilm, Ltd.)" width="2280" height="1502" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20200917235236im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Lucas-Am-Grafitti009.jpg 2280w, /web/20200917235236im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Lucas-Am-Grafitti009-380x250.jpg 380w, /web/20200917235236im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Lucas-Am-Grafitti009-760x501.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235236/https://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Lucas-Am-Grafitti009.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-15206" class="wp-caption-text">1973: Director George Lucas preparing a difficult shot for his coming-of-age comedy-drama film <i>American Graffiti</i>. The genesis of the film was Lucas’s own teenage years in early 1960s Modesto. The film received widespread critical acclaim and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture. Produced on a $777,000 budget, it has become one of the most profitable films of all time. The movie went on to earn $200 million in box office sales.</figcaption></figure> <p><strong>Would you say your career has been marked by going against the conventional wisdom?</strong></p> <p>George Lucas: Yeah, and it’s made it considerably more difficult. It’s funny when you look back now, because everybody’s sort of copied those films. They’re so ingrained in the culture now, it’s almost impossible to think there was a point where those things were completely odd and unique.</p> <p>The funny thing is, the two movies I directed that were my conventional movies were slight twists on very, very conventional movies, the kind that I loved when I was younger. One genre was the teenage hot rod movies made by American International Pictures, which were sort of the lowest rung of the movie ladder. The other was Republic Serials, Saturday morning serials from the ’30s, which were an ancient lowest rung on the ladder.</p> <p>So I was taking the lowest genre that was available and then twisting it and making it into something completely different, something that was more mainstream in terms of the quality and acceptability of the modern movie-going audience. I think the prejudice against those films was really that they were cheap B movies; not that they were so out there.</p> <p><strong>Was there anything about you or your ideas that made it so difficult to get your first films made?</strong></p> <p>George Lucas: It was just my thinking. Those were the movies that I loved when I was younger.</p> </body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235236if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/3bmxDeVajHA?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Lucas-George-1999-MasterEdit.00_40_32_15.Still011-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Lucas-George-1999-MasterEdit.00_40_32_15.Still011-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/keys-to-success/preparation/">Preparation</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>I came from a very avant-garde documentary kind of filmmaking world. I like cinema verité, documentaries. I liked non-story, non-character tone poems that were being done in San Francisco at that time. And that’s the filmmaking that I was interested in. Francis Coppola, who was my mentor, sort of — he’s a writer and works with actors — stage director — and he said, “You’ve gotta learn how to do this.” And so I took him up on the challenge and wrote my own screenplays, learned to write and work with actors.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235236if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/s6oAPfCQ8Xw?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Lucas-George-1999-MasterEdit.00_46_17_13.Still014-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Lucas-George-1999-MasterEdit.00_46_17_13.Still014-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/keys-to-success/perseverance/">Perseverance</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p><em>American Graffiti </em>was really my first attempt at doing something mainstream, so to speak, and even it was so — one, it was in a genre that was looked down upon but I loved when I was a kid. It was about my life as I grew up, so I cared about it a lot. And then on top of it, it was in a style that was different from what everybody was used to. It was intercutting four stories that didn’t relate to each other, which nobody had really done before. Now it’s sort of the standard fare for television. And it had music all the way through it; not just the score but actual songs from the period, and that is something that nobody had done before. And they just sort of described it as a musical montage with no characters and no story, and so it was very, very hard to get that off the ground, and on top of that it was a B movie. I almost got it set up at American International Pictures, where they liked doing those kinds of movies but it was too strange for them in terms of the style. And <em>Star Wars </em>was kind of the same situation where it was a genre they weren’t that interested in. Science fiction was not something that did well at the box office. It dealt with robots and Wookies and things that — generally most people — they couldn’t read it and say, “I understand what this is all about.” They just were completely confused by it. And really on top of that, it was aimed at being a film for young people, and most of the studios said, “Look, that’s Disney’s. Disney does that. The rest of us can’t do that, so we don’t want to get into that area.” So I had so many strikes against me when I did that. I was lucky that I found a studio executive that just believed in me as a filmmaker and just disregarded the material itself.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body data-rsssl="1"><figure id="attachment_15207" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-15207" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="wp-image-15207 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235236im_/https://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Lucas-and-C3PO_photofest.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="wp-image-15207 size-full lazyload" alt="George Lucas with actor Anthony Daniels, in costume as C3PO, on the set of Star Wars, 1977. (PhotoFest)" width="2280" height="1512" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20200917235236im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Lucas-and-C3PO_photofest.jpg 2280w, /web/20200917235236im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Lucas-and-C3PO_photofest-380x252.jpg 380w, /web/20200917235236im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Lucas-and-C3PO_photofest-760x504.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235236/https://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Lucas-and-C3PO_photofest.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-15207" class="wp-caption-text">Director George Lucas with actor Anthony Daniels, in costume as C3PO, on the set of <em>Star Wars</em>, 1977. (PhotoFest)</figcaption></figure> <p><strong>In these groundbreaking circumstances, were you afflicted with any self-doubts, fear of failure?</strong></p> <p>George Lucas: Whenever you’re making a movie, especially when you’re writing, you always have self-doubts. I did the first location shooting in Tunisia. I didn’t get everything shot, but I had to get out of there in ten days regardless. What I had shot was the very beginning of the movie, and I was very worried about the creative quality of it. I just didn’t know.</p> </body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235236if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/PNjO7oJ-cV4?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0&start=0&end=61&version=3" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Lucas-George-1999-MasterEdit.00_15_41_09.Still002-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Lucas-George-1999-MasterEdit.00_15_41_09.Still002-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>I was working with an editor I hadn’t worked with before — I started out as an editor — I was working with a British editor and the scenes would come back, and I’d go on the weekends and look at the scenes with the editor, and they just weren’t working. And I was very down about the whole situation. So I went in myself on Sundays and started re-cutting the movie. The editing wasn’t obviously bad but it just wasn’t working. I couldn’t quite figure out what was going on. I mean it was either I was doing a terrible job directing this thing, or something else. As I started to cut the film together, I realized that I was making cuts that were, you know, a foot away from where the editor had been making them. And I had been using the same takes that I’d given him, but I was just slightly moving it ever so slightly in one direction, and it suddenly clicked and it started working, which was a great relief to me because up to that point I was feeling very desperate about the whole situation.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body data-rsssl="1"><figure id="attachment_15203" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-15203" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="wp-image-15203 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235236im_/https://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Coppala_Lucas_10_photofest.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="wp-image-15203 size-full lazyload" alt="George Lucas and lifelong friend Francis Ford Coppola at Lucas's Skywalker Ranch. (© LucasFilm, Ltd.)" width="2280" height="1469" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20200917235236im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Coppala_Lucas_10_photofest.jpg 2280w, /web/20200917235236im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Coppala_Lucas_10_photofest-380x245.jpg 380w, /web/20200917235236im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Coppala_Lucas_10_photofest-760x490.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235236/https://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Coppala_Lucas_10_photofest.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-15203" class="wp-caption-text">George Lucas with lifelong friend and mentor Francis Ford Coppola at Lucas’s Skywalker Ranch. (LucasFilm, Ltd.)</figcaption></figure> <p><strong>When the going gets rough, how do you deal with feelings of desperation?</strong></p> <p>George Lucas: I’ve had this quite a bit in my career actually. You simply have to put one foot in front of the other and keep going. Put blinders on and plow right ahead.</p> </body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235236if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/FeIER-yvvEQ?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0&start=0&end=126&version=3" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Lucas-George-1999-MasterEdit.00_42_13_10.Still012-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Lucas-George-1999-MasterEdit.00_42_13_10.Still012-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>When I was doing <em>American Graffiti </em>I was still struggling with my “I don’t want to be a writer” syndrome. I had some good friends of mine that I wanted to write the screenplay, but it took me like two years just to get the money to do a screenplay. And I got a little tiny amount of money and — which I had to go actually to the Cannes Film Festival to get on my own. So finally I got this money. I called back and I said, you know, “I got the money. We can start working on the screenplay.” And they said, “Oh, we don’t want to do that now. We’ve got our own low-budget picture off the ground and we can’t write it.” I said, “Oh no.” I said, “What am I going to do? I am in Europe and I’m not going to be back for like three months and I want to get this thing off the ground.” So they recommended another student from school that I knew pretty well. I had a story treatment that laid out the entire story scene by scene, so I called him over the phone from London and I said, “Do you want to do this?” And he said, “Okay.” The person I was working with at that time as a producer made a deal with him for the whole money because there wasn’t very much. It was so tiny that he could only get him to do it for the whole amount of money. When I came back from England, the screenplay was a completely different screenplay from the story treatment. It was more like <em>Hot Rods to Hell</em>. It was very fantasy-like, with playing chicken and things that kids didn’t really do. I wanted something that was more like the way I grew up. So I took that and I said, “Okay. Now here I am. I’ve got a deal to turn in a screenplay. I’ve got a screenplay that is just not the kind of screenplay I want at all and I have no money.” And, I spent the very last money I had saved up to go to Europe to make the deal, so I had nothing. That was a very dark period for me so I sat down myself and wrote the screenplay.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p>And the most difficult part was that during the writing of the screenplay…</p> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235236if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/jcyrTccNCrs?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Lucas-George-1999-MasterEdit.00_12_22_16.Still001-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Lucas-George-1999-MasterEdit.00_12_22_16.Still001-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/keys-to-success/integrity/">Integrity</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>I kept getting phone calls from producers saying, “I hear you’re great.” I had made a film called <em>THX</em>, which had no story and no character really. It was kind of an avant-garde film. And so I had all these producers calling me saying, “I hear you’re really good at material that doesn’t have a story. I’ve got a record album I want you to make into a movie.” Things like that. And they were offering me a lot of money and — but they were terrible projects. And so I had to constantly turn down vast sums of money while I was starving, writing a screenplay for free that I didn’t like to write because I hated writing. But, I did finish it. I did write the screenplay and eventually I got a deal to make the movie. And then after I finally got that, then my friends came back in and did a rewrite on it, but it was a very dark period, and I could have very easily just taken the money and gone off and done one of these really terrible movies. I don’t know what that would have done for my career, but you know, when the times are hard like that you simply have to say, “This is what I want to do. I want to make my movie. I don’t want to take the money.” And you just walk forward, step by step and get through it somehow. And I got through. It actually only took me about three weeks to write that script. I just every day would sit down at eight o’clock in the morning and I’d write until about eight o’clock at night. And I just said, “I’m going to finish this, as painful as it is, and I’m going to ignore these phone calls of lure of riches and get through this.” And somehow I did it.</p> </div> </div>     <aside class="collapse" id="full-interview">    <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p><strong>What is it about film that makes it so exciting?</strong></p> <p>George Lucas: I think that’s just a personal thing for me. It’s extremely hard work, and it’s not very glamorous. It ultimately is simply a way of expressing ideas. I am more of a visual person than a verbal person. For me, I think, the excitement is the fact that I found a way of telling the story as I want to tell it, in a medium that I could master. Although I write screenplays, I don’t think I’m a very good writer. I’m very interested in studying cultures and social issues, but as an academic I don’t think I would have been too successful.</p> <p><strong>Weren’t you always interested in filmmaking?</strong></p> <p>George Lucas: Well, I grew up in a small town in Central California; it was a farming community. We had a couple of movie theaters, and you’d go to the movies once in a while. I didn’t get a television until I was 10 or 11 years old. I had lots of interests. I liked woodworking, I liked to build things. I liked cars. I liked art. I really wanted to be an illustrator, and I liked photography. I didn’t really discover any interest in film until I was a junior in college.</p> <p><strong>Were there any experiences that inspired you as a kid?</strong></p> <p>George Lucas: There wasn’t much as a kid that inspired me in what I did as an adult. I was always extremely curious about why people did the things they do. I was always very interested in what motivates people and in telling stories and building things. I’ve always been very into building things. Whether it was chess sets or houses or cars or whatever. I liked to put things together. When I was young, from at least my teenage years they were completely devoted to cars. That was the most important thing in my life from about the ages of 14 to 20.</p> <p><strong>What changed for you then? Is there something you learned about achievement later that you didn’t understand when you were younger?</strong></p> <p>George Lucas: Part of the issue of achievement is to be able to set realistic goals. That was one of the hardest things for me to do. You don’t always know exactly where you’re going, and you shouldn’t. For me just setting the goals of getting decent grades in school and taking subjects I had some interest in was a big goal. I focused on that.</p> <p>When I first got to college, I was very interested in the social sciences, anthropology, sociology, psychology, those kinds of things. And I was still interested in art and photography. I didn’t know that I could actually put them all together in one occupation and love it.</p> <p>I wanted to transfer to an art school, and ended up going to the University of Southern California. They had a cinematography school, and I said “Well, that’s sort of like photography, maybe that will be interesting.” And once I started in that department, I found what it was that I loved and was good at. And I realized I could do it very well, and that I enjoyed doing it. It really ignited a passion in me, and it took off from there. After that, I didn’t do anything but films.</p> <p>You could actually go to school and learn how to make movies. Suddenly everything came together in one place. All my likes, everything I actually seemed to have talent for was right there. I said, “Hey, this is it. I can do this really well. I really love to do it.” And from then on I, you know, just took off, but before that I was kind of wandering as I think a lot of students do.</p> <p>When I look back on it now, if I’d gone to art school, or stayed in anthropology, I’m almost positive I would have ended up eventually in film. Mostly I just followed my inner feelings and passions, and said “I like this, and I like this,” and I just kept going to where it got warmer and warmer, until it finally got hot, and then that’s where I was.</p> <p><strong>Were there any books or films that were important to you, that influenced or inspired you to do the kind of work you wanted to do?</strong></p> <p>George Lucas: When I was younger, I had a collection of history books that I was addicted to, a whole series about famous people in history from Ancient Greece and Alexander the Great, up to the Civil War — the Monitor and the Merrimac. I think they were called “Landmark” books, and I collected a whole library of them. I used to love to read those books. It started me on a lifelong love of history. Even in high school I was very interested in history — why people do the things they do. As a kid I spent a lot of time trying to relate the past to the present.</p> <p>I liked all the normal kinds of adventure books, <em>Kidnapped, Treasure Island, </em>Huck Finn sorts of things. I loved <em>Swiss Family Robinson </em>and that whole period of South Sea adventure movies. I liked westerns. Westerns were very big when I was growing up. When we finally got a television there was a whole run of westerns on television. John Wayne films, directed by John Ford, before I knew who John Ford was. I think those were very influential in my enjoyment of movies.</p> <p><strong>Do you think you had a natural talent for filmmaking? What drew you to that line of work?</strong></p> <p>George Lucas: Everybody has talent and it’s just a matter of moving around until you’ve discovered what it is. A talent is a combination of something you love a great deal and something you can lose yourself in — something that you can start at 9 o’clock, look up from your work and it’s 10 o’clock at night — and also something that you have a talent, not a talent for, but skills that you have a natural ability to do very well. And usually those two things go together.A lot of people like to do certain things, but they’re not that good at it. Keep going through the things that you like to do, until you find something that you actually seem to be extremely good at. It can be anything. There’s lots and lots of different things out there. It’s a matter of moving around until you find the one for you, the niche that you fit into.</p> <p><strong>Once you started making films, do you think it came easy for you?</strong></p> <p>George Lucas: Learning to make films is very easy. Learning what to make films about is very hard. What you’ve really got to do is focus on learning as much about life, and about various aspects of it first. Then learn just the techniques of making a movie because that stuff you can pick up pretty quickly. But having a really good understanding of history, literature, psychology, sciences — are very, very important to actually being able to make movies.</p> <p><strong>In your opinion, what personal characteristics are most important for success in any field?</strong></p> <p>George Lucas: If you want to be successful in a particular field of endeavor, I think perseverance is one of the key qualities. It’s very important that you find something that you care about, that you have a deep passion for, because you’re going to have to devote a lot of your life to it. And you’re going to have to really be focused on it. And you’re going to have to overcome a lot of hurdles, a lot of people saying you can’t do it. And you’re going to have to take a lot of risks.</p> <p>Working hard is very important. You have to find something that you love enough to be able to take those risks, to be able to jump over the hurdles, to be able to break through the brick walls that are always going to be placed in front of you. If you don’t have that kind of feeling for what it is you’re doing, you’ll stop at the first giant hurdle. So, I think you’ll never make it unless you persevere. Unless you overcome a lot of very difficult obstacles. I think that’s one of the most important characteristics in terms of an occupation.</p> <p><strong>Looking back on the bumps in your career, as well as your successes, what advice would you give a young person?</strong></p> <p>George Lucas: Working hard is very important. You’re not going to get anywhere without working extremely hard. No matter how easy it looks on the outside, it’s a very, very difficult struggle. You don’t see the struggle part of a person’s life. You only see the success they have. But I haven’t met anybody here at the Academy or anywhere else that hasn’t been able to describe years and years and years of very, very difficult struggle through the whole process of achieving anything whatsoever. And there’s no way to sort of get around that. The secret is just not to give up hope. It’s very hard not to because if you’re really doing something worthwhile, I think you will be pushed to the brink of hopelessness before you come through the other side. You just have to hang in through that.</p> <p><strong>Did that happen to you?</strong></p> <p>George Lucas: Oh yeah, lots of times. I’ve had much more down in my life than I’ve had up. And much more struggle. First of all, when I went into the film school everybody said, “What are you doing? This is a complete dead-end for a career.” Because nobody had ever made it from a film school into the actual film industry. Maybe you’d go to work for Lockheed, or some industrial company to do industrial films, but nobody actually made it into the entertainment business. I had no interest in going into the entertainment business, so I didn’t really care. I was more interested in just doing films, going back to San Francisco, doing experimental films and that sort of thing, maybe documentaries and that sort of thing. So I didn’t care. Then I finished school, I went to San Francisco, and everybody said, “Why are you going to San Francisco?” I said, “That’s where I live.” They said, “You can’t possibly work in the film business living in San Francisco.” And I said, “Well, I want to live where I want to live, and I will make films because I love to make films.”</p> <p>My first six years in the business was hopeless. There’s lot of times when you sit and you say, “Why am I doing this? I’ll never make it. It’s just not going to happen. I should really go out and get a real job, and try to survive,” because I’d borrowed money from my parents. I’d borrowed money from my friends. You know, it didn’t look like I was ever going to actually be able to pay anybody back. This is part of living. You do have to eat, pay rent and pay back your friends who are supporting you.</p> <p>I mean, it took me years to get my first film off the ground. As I talk to film students now especially, I say, “The easiest job you’ll ever get is to try to make your first film.” That’s the easy one to get, is the first film because nobody knows whether you can make a film or not. You’ve made a bunch of little projects, you’ve shown off you have talent, and you talk real fast, and you convince somebody that you should be doing a feature. And, they let you do a feature. After you’ve done that feature, then you have heck of a difficult time getting your second film off the ground. They look at your first film and they say, “Oh well, we don’t want you anymore.”</p> <p>It took me three, four years, to get from my first film to my second film, banging on doors, trying to get people to give me a chance. Writing, struggling, with no money in the bank, working as an editor on the side. Working as a cameraman on the side. Getting little jobs, eking out a living. Trying to stay alive, and pushing a script that nobody wanted.</p> <p>Film is not an easy occupation. There’s a lot of occupations that are difficult. Film is one of them. There’s always adversity that you’re faced with. I like to tell students that I talk to that, you know, it’s not a matter of how well can you make a movie. It’s how well can you make it under the circumstance, because there’s always circumstances. You cannot use that as an excuse. You can’t put a title card at the head of the movie and say, “Well, we really had a bad problem. You know, the actor got sick and it rained this day and we had a hurricane.” And you know, you can’t — the cameras broke down — you can’t do that. You simply have to show them the movie and it has got to work and there are no excuses. And so, you really have to focus on what you’re doing and just plow ahead no matter what hurdles are thrown in front of you.</p> <p>After I did <em>American Graffiti, </em>and it was successful, it was a big moment for me because I really did sit down with myself and say, “Okay, now I am a director. Now I know I can get a job. I can work in this industry, and apply my trade, and express my ideas on things and be creative in a way that I enjoy. Even if I end up doing TV commercials or something, or I fall back into what I really love is documentaries. I’ll be able to do it. I know I can get a job somewhere. I know I can raise money somewhere. I know I can do what I want to do.” That was a very good feeling. At that point, I’d made it. There wasn’t anything in my life that was going to stop me from making movies.</p> <p><strong>Ever since <em>Star Wars, </em>we’ve seen all of these action figures and tie-ins and merchandising with popular films. This was something new in the movie business, wasn’t it? How did you figure out that this could be part of the business?</strong></p> <p>George Lucas: Well, those things kind of happen. When you are a beginning filmmaker you are desperate to survive. The most important thing in the end is survival and being able to get to your next picture. I had written a screenplay, but the screenplay was so big that I couldn’t possibly make it into one movie. So I said, “Okay. I’ll get rid of the last two thirds of it, and I’ll just do the first act. I can make that into one movie. That’s big enough.” But I still had all this other work that I’d done. I’d spent a whole year doing this and I said, “I’m not going to give this up. I won’t just put this on the shelf and forget it. I’ll make this into three movies and I will make all three movies. ”</p> <p>I made a pact with myself that I was going to make all three (<em>Star Wars</em>) movies, and in order to do that, as I stated to make my deal with 20th Century Fox, I acquired the sequel rights, because I didn’t want them to bury the sequel. I wanted to make these movies and I was determined to make these movies regardless of whether they wanted to, or the movie made any money or not. And then I got the merchandising rights, which weren’t anything at the time because there was no such thing as merchandising on movies. Some TV stuff, but not movies. Their life span is just too short. But I figured I could make posters. I could make t-shirts and, you know, I could publicize the movie and, hopefully, people would go see it. And because the studio — everything is sort of a struggle again to survive, which is — the studio won’t put enough money into your movie to get it into the theaters, to do the advertising. So I said, “Well, I can’t. I don’t have any money. I don’t have any money, but I can maybe make a t-shirt deal and I can maybe make a poster deal, and I can maybe get these out at science fiction conventions and things before the movie comes out, and promote the movie.” So I did it as sort of self-preservation.</p> <p>I’m an independent filmmaker from San Francisco. I don’t have a lot of resources, so I have to think about how I’m going to get through this movie, and not only that, but how I’m going get it promoted and make enough money to do the next movie. As it turned out, the film was so successful we were able to make toy deals and we began to start the whole idea of action figures, of tie-ins, of toys that go along with movies. Over the years that’s one of the things that’s helped me stay independent and finance my own movies and stay in business.</p> <p><strong>How important is it to you to be independent?</strong></p> <p>George Lucas: For me it’s very important. I think for most creative people they don’t like others looking over their shoulder saying, “Why don’t you make that green? Why don’t you make that blue? Why are you doing this? Why are you doing that? I don’t like that. Don’t put that in there.” It’s sort of like Michelangelo and the Pope in terms of doing the Sistine Chapel. It is a very irritating thing, and I’m sure Michelangelo was very irritated with the Pope. So you try to get yourself into a situation where you only have to answer to yourself, where you can ask advice of people and work with your peers and mentors and things to try to do the best job that you can possibly do. There’s nothing worse than the frustration of having somebody who you feel doesn’t get what you’re doing, trying to turn it into something else. It’s a very, very annoying and sort of frustrating thing and I just never wanted to go through it. I was very fortunate as I came up through the film business that I was able to insulate myself from that. Occasionally I get a studio re-cutting my movie at the very end, but I’d would always fight and get it, eventually, even if years later, get it cut back. But, it comes out of film school, I think, where the primacy of the creative process in terms of making a film, is what you live for. It’s not a business. It’s trying to create something interesting that you’re proud of, and try out creative ideas that may seem really off the wall, may work or may not work.</p> <p>Sometimes people are surprised to learn that most of the films I’ve made don’t work. They’ve been released but nobody has ever seen them. Maybe 40 percent of them are very successful. That’s a very high percentage; most people have maybe 10 or 15 percent of their films work. When my films that don’t work it’s usually because I tried some very experimental idea. I tried new ideas and they just didn’t work, as opposed to trying to do something conventional and having it be so conventional nobody wanted to see it.</p> <p>I’m very proud of all the movies I made. I am very happy with everything I’ve done. I like to watch my movies. Some of them work. Some of them don’t. Some of them people like, most of them they don’t.</p> <p><strong>And that’s all right with you?</strong></p> <p>George Lucas: It is all right because I like making movies. I like the process. I like trying out new ideas, and if they don’t work, they don’t work. That’s the reason I generated the money in the first place, to be able to try things. That’s where I spend my money.</p> <p><strong>What do you see as the next challenge, the next frontier in the art of making movies?</strong></p> <p>George Lucas: I think crossing into the digital age is the big move for the industry. I think it will be the biggest thing that’s happened while I’ve been making movies. I equate it to the invention of color or sound, and I don’t see any other major technical process coming along and changing that.</p> <p>I think there are going to be some social changes that take place due to the Internet, and the availability of the tools to more and more people. I think you are going to find a lot of people re-cutting movies and changing them, making them into their own movies, things that are hard to contemplate at this point. And there will be delivery systems that are way, way different. But in terms of the primary process of making a movie, once we get through this digital revolution, I think it should stay pretty much like that for at least the next 20 or 30 years.</p> <p>It’s hard to tell, but I think the biggest issue is going to be to be how the movies get into the marketplace and what happens to them once they are there. I don’t think it’s going to be a “sit down, hands off” situation anymore. I think it’s going to be people sort of reinventing the movies once they’re out there. How this works for the artist, I don’t know. And what it does to the marketplace, I don’t know. We’re living in very exciting times and I look forward to seeing how this whole thing evolves.</p> <p><strong>You’ve talked about some of your failures, but you have had enormous success. How do you handle success?</strong></p> <p>George Lucas: Success is a very difficult thing. It’s much more difficult than one might think. And when I first had a successful movie, which was <em>American Graffiti, </em>fortunately it was huge, but it wasn’t so huge in terms of monetary things. And it came so slowly that I was able to assimilate it a little bit. <em>Star Wars </em>was much more difficult, and I had a lot of friends who had become very successful and they said, “Boy! Watch out, boy. When that one hits you’re really going to be thrown for a loop.” I said, “Oh no, no. I went through <em>American Graffiti. </em>I can handle this. I know, you know—” But when <em>Star Wars </em>finally — you know, the reality of it hit and all of the attendant things that go on around it hit, psychologically it’s a very, very difficult thing to cope with. And you really need time after an event like that in your life, especially if it comes very fast, to assimilate what it is that has happened to you and how everybody relates to you and how your life is.</p> <p>It’s hard to explain what happens psychologically, because a lot of the constraints that you’ve had are now gone. Instead of scrambling to find one opportunity somewhere to do something, you suddenly have an endless supply of opportunities to do anything. So instead of trying to coerce somebody into saying yes, you are suddenly desperate to learn how to say no. I’ve seen it with a lot of people, the first thing you do is say yes to everything because they’re all wonderful, wonderful things that are offered to you</p> <p>Here you’ve spent your whole life just begging, and using every means at your disposal to get one person or two people to say ‘yes’ to your project or to say, “Yes, I’ll do this. Yes,” you know? And then suddenly everybody says yes. Suddenly everybody wants you to do everything and anything you want. Then you have to start learning how to say ‘no’ — and tons of opportunities coming your way. Wonderful opportunities, but you can’t do them all. If you start doing them all, your life gets very unfocused. You get overwhelmed and you collapse, basically. And your feelings of invincibility and stuff sort of turn into a morass of depression and — I’ve seen it happen to a lot of people and I went through it myself. It’s just unavoidable if you’re successful. And no matter how much you think you can deal with it, you can’t.</p> <p>You need to have a lot of close family around you, a lot of friends to keep you honest. Take your time, take a year and just slow everything down a little bit. Get away from the success part, stay with yourself. Go off on a beach somewhere or do something to keep yourself aligned right.</p> <p>I’ve made it a habit. When a movie comes out, I always go off on a beach so I miss all the craziness that goes on, all the hoopla, and the hype and the success, and how much it’s making, or whether it’s doing good or whether it’s doing bad. I just miss it all. I don’t talk to anybody, and a couple weeks later I come back and it’s all over with. So I hear the results but I didn’t have to live through them. I think it’s a healthy way to handle success. Don’t wallow in it. Keep it at arm’s length.</p> <p><strong>In a public art form like yours, how do you handle criticism?</strong></p> <p>George Lucas: When I started out, like everyone else I read the critics. You read not only the criticism of your own movies but everyone else’s movies, and as you start to make movies you also meet the critics. Over time I began to realize that the level of cinema criticism in the last part of this century in the United States was pretty low. The institution itself is not what it’s supposed to be, and I realized that I didn’t need to take that seriously.</p> <p>There are a few critics overseas, and occasionally a critic will write an astute analysis of the movie. There is value in reading critics that actually have something intelligent to say, but the journalistic community lives in a world of sound bites and literary commerce: selling newspapers, selling books, and they do that simply by trashing things. They don’t criticize or analyze them. They simply trash them for the sake of a headline, or to shock people to get them to buy whatever it is they’re selling. The older you get, the less seriously you take it. I’ve gotten to a point now where I ignore it completely. It’s just not relevant to me anymore.</p> <p>You have to have a thick enough skin to cope with the criticism. I’m very self-critical and I have a lot of friends that I trust who are film directors and writers and people in my profession. I trust them to be extremely critical but I trust their opinion; their opinion is thoughtful, knowledgeable. I also know them personally so I know the psychological slant they are putting on it. I know what their tastes are and I can say, “Well that’s great for them but that’s not great for me.” Technical criticism is extremely helpful but you are only going to get that from your peers.</p> <p>I’ve discovered that most critics themselves are cinematically illiterate. They don’t really know much about movies. They don’t know the history. They don’t know the technology. They don’t know anything. So for them to try to analyze it, they’re lost. But your friends usually know what they’re doing and they can critique the technical side of things to say, “This doesn’t work. You know, you’re putting the cart before the horse.” This kind of stuff. And then the rest of it is what you like, you know. It’s personal, you know. It’s in the eye of the beholder. You know, “I like this movie. I don’t like this movie.” There are a lot of movies that are badly made that I love, and there are a lot of movies that are just beautifully made but I don’t like them. And critics have a tendency – that’s all they focus on, which is, “I like it. I don’t like it. It’s good. It’s bad.” And it doesn’t work that way, and so you really have to not deal with that part of what happens. It’s the same thing with the audience. You know, I’ve made some movies that have — ten people have gone to see. Nobody wanted to go see the movie. And some films that the people went and saw them didn’t like it. Probably, you know, maybe a half a dozen of us actually liked the movies, but that’s fine. If I like it, then I’m happy with it. And you have to sort of accept that no matter what. If nobody else likes it. You’re not going to stay in business, the business of making movies very long because you need the resources in order to keep going. So you have to try and find a niche audience or some kind of audience that has the same likes, dislikes and aesthetic sensibilities that you have.</p> <p>I think one of the reasons that Steven (Spielberg) and I have been as successful as we have is because we like the movies. We like to go to the movies. We enjoy movies and we want to make movies like the ones we enjoy. We want to be able to entertain the audience. We want to be able to startle the audience. We want to be able to blow the audience away and say — have them walk out of the theater saying, “Whoa, that was fantastic, I was really moved by that.” That’s where part of the fun of it is. And, you know, you want people to think. You want people to be emotionally moved. And there’s a theory behind that in terms of storytelling. It has been around for thousands of years. And that’s where something like live theater or a live performance is something that is very valuable because you get instant feedback from your audience and you kind of know the things that work and the things that don’t work. That’s the advantage that the Greek storytellers had and Shakespeare had, that us in the film industry are — that’s harder to come by. Which is to be able to see an audience reaction and then adjust to what works. So you have to use your experience of sitting through a lot of movies.</p> <p>I don’t ever see movies by myself. I always see them with other people because I want to know what works. I want to know where they laugh. I want to know where they don’t laugh. I want to know what they think about it afterwards because in the end that’s what the art that I’m working with is. You know? Trying to communicate in a way that is effective and people react to. So I can’t ignore the people I’m telling the story to.</p> <p><strong>You’ve enabled other directors to exploit new technology and have more control over sound and the moving image. What drives you to keep pushing the envelope of technology?</strong></p> <p>George Lucas: People look at technology as sometimes an end to things, and it isn’t an end in certain cases. In the movie business, the act of creating in the art form of movies, the craft of movies is completely technical, and that’s all it is. It’s a big technical thing, as opposed to writing a book or something, which is partially technical. I mean, the writing part, using the different pens, the different papers, that was all a big deal. As you went back, the first printing press, binding books, paperback books, cheap books for a lot of people, that’s all technology that allows the writer to reach a better audience. And sometimes, in the case of painters as opposed to writers, express themselves more clearly. A lot of painters, Michelangelo, a lot of painters in the past were very adept at mixing colors, and coming up with new colors, so that they could express things in new ways. The technology of brushes and all those things were very important to how they applied their craft. Same thing in movies, only it’s a hundredfold. The first movies, they just put up a camera and had a train come into a train station, and everybody was amazed. That was sort of all technology. “Look at the technology!” But as it grew, it grew into more of an art form, much more sophisticated than that. What we’ve been doing ever since then, whether we add sound, or whether we add color, or whether we use digital technology, is simply a way of broadening the canvas, so that we have more colors to work with. As it started out, it was cave paintings, and they were very beautiful and very significant. But as you get along, the technology of using canvas, or of sculpting in different kinds of material, and suddenly it all advances to a point where it gets very sophisticated. You can tell much more interesting stories and you can express yourself more clearly. That’s what’s happening today, and that’s why all artists are constantly pushing the technology in their medium — to be able to widen the range that they can use their imagination.</p> <p>The area that has the most range at this point is probably literature, and it always has, because it’s a key to the mind and it’s very direct. And there, it’s just the pen and paper, and how you manage to use your words. But, theatre, Shakespeare, most of Shakespeare was written around the technology of the day. Things are staged in a certain way, and written in a certain way in order to deal with the limitations of the stage, of the flickering candlelight, and of the rowdy audiences, and how do you get people off the stage, and get new people on the stage if you don’t have a curtain, and those kinds of things. So in a lot of ways, the artist is restricted a great deal by the technology of the medium that he’s working in. And in film, because the nature of it is so technological, the artist has been the most restricted in what he can do. Digital technology allows and the new kinds of things we’re working with today that we’re pushing forward allows you to tell a bigger story and use more imagination than you were able to do in the past.</p> <p><strong>What are your dreams right now for the next ten or 20 years?</strong></p> <p>George Lucas: My life is making movies. I like storytelling, and I’ve got a lot of stories that are stored up in my head that I hope to get out before my time is up. So for me looking at it, it’s just a matter of “How can I get through all the stories in the amount of time I have left?” My dream is that I get to do it.</p> <p>That was my dream when I was younger, too. “Will I get to make the movies? Will I get to do what I want?” I’ve spent a fair amount of time doing what I want, and I “serendipitied” into starting companies, and building technology, and doing a lot of other things that are related to me getting to make the movies that I want to make. I’ve always just followed my own course, whatever I found the most interesting to me at the moment. I’ve never had a real plan of, “I want to get from here to there, and I’ve got to do this.” The underlying plan to everything is, “I’ve got a bunch of movies to tell, and this is the one I’m going to do now, and this is the one I’m going to do next.” And then I focus on the one at hand.</p> <p><strong>What does the American Dream mean to you?</strong></p> <p>George Lucas: I don’t know what to say about that. It’s a very, very complex question. I would like to see our society mature, and become more rational and more knowledge-based, less emotion-based. I’d like to see education play a larger role in our daily lives, have people come to a larger understanding — a “bigger picture” understanding — of how we fit into the world, and how we fit into the universe. Not necessarily thinking of ourselves, but thinking of others.</p> <p>Whether we’re going to accomplish this, I’m not sure. Obviously, people have a lot of different dreams of where America should be, and where it should fit into things. Obviously, very few of them are compatible, and very few of them are very compatible with the laws of nature. Human nature means battling constantly between being completely self-absorbed and trying to be a communal creature. Nature makes you a communal creature. The ultimate single-minded, self-centered creature is a cancer cell. And mostly, we’re not made up of cancer cells.</p> <p>If you put that notion on a larger scale, you have to understand that it’s a very cooperative world, not only with the environment, with but our fellow human beings. If you do not cooperate, if you do not work together to keep the entire organism going, the whole thing dies, and everybody dies with it. That’s a law of nature, and it’s existed forever. We’re one of the very few creatures that has a choice, and can intellectualize the process.</p> <p>Most organisms either adapt and become part of the system, or get wiped out. The only thing we have to adapt to the system with is our brain. If we don’t use it, and we don’t adapt fast enough, we won’t survive.</p> <p><strong>You mentioned the words “communal” and “connecting.” Your generation of the top filmmakers all seem to be friends. How did you band together in a field that is so competitive?</strong></p> <p>George Lucas: I think that’s the advantage that my generation has. When we were in film school and we were starting in the film business, the door was absolutely locked. It was a very, very high wall, and nobody got in. Therefore, all of us beggars and scroungers down at the front gate decided that if we didn’t band together, we wouldn’t survive. If one could make it, that one would help all the others make it. And we would continue to help each other. So we banded together. That’s how cavemen figured it out. Any society starts that way. Any society begins by realizing that together, by helping each other, you can survive better than if you fight each other and compete with each other.</p> <p>Farming cultures started this way, and the first hunting cultures started this way. Everything started in city-states. We have a tendency to lose it when we forget that, as a group, we are stronger than we are as individuals. We start to think we want everything for ourselves and we don’t want to help anybody else. We want to succeed, but we don’t want anybody else to succeed, because we want to be the winner. Once you get that mentality — which is unfortunately the way a lot of the society operates — you lose. You can’t possibly win that way. Part of the reason my friends and I became successful is that we were always helping each other.</p> <p>If I got a job, I would help somebody else get a job. If somebody got more successful than me, it was partly my success. My success wasn’t based on how I could push down everybody that was around me. My success was based on how much I could push everybody up. And eventually their success was the same way. And in the process they pushed me up, and I pushed them up, and we kept doing that, and we still do that. Even though we all have, in essence, competing companies, we see it as, if everybody succeeds, if my friend succeeds then everybody succeeds. So that’s the key to it, to have everybody succeed, not to gloat over somebody else’s failure.</p> <p>We continue to do that, and we do it with younger filmmakers. There’s no way of getting through any kind of endeavor without help from friends. And trying to be the number one person, ultimately, is a losing proposition. You need peers; you need people who are at the same level you are. You never know in life when you’re going to need help, and you never know who you’re going to need it from.</p> <p>One of the basic motifs in fairy tales is that you find the poor and unfortunate along the side of the road, and when they beg for help, if you give it to them, you end up succeeding. If you don’t give it to them, you end up being turned into a frog or something. It’s something that’s been around for thousands of years, a concept that’s been around for thousands of years. It is even more necessary today, when people are much more into their own aggrandizement than they are in helping other people. One thing you hear at the Academy here is constantly about public service, about helping others. I don’t think there’s anybody who’s become successful who doesn’t understand how important it is to be part of a larger community, to help other people in a larger community, to give back to the community. And it’s not something you start doing when you’ve made it. Now I’m on the top. I can enhance my joy and self-esteem by helping the poor underlings. It’s when you’re at the very lowest level and you’re struggling. When we were in film school, we were all very, very poor. We were all very, very struggling. We all needed jobs very desperately. And if one of us couldn’t get a particular job, we’d send another friend in on the interview because we were hoping that one of us would get the job. So you do it right from the very beginning. You can start every single day. Whether it’s helping your brother or sister, or helping your peers at school, or helping in the community. But it’s not just a kind of public service thing. It’s a way of life.</p> <p>Then you realize how great it is, and that, by helping others, you’ll achieve more. It’s much more logical and intelligent to help others get to the level where everyone else is, rather than criticizing, or making fun, so that everybody can move on. And if you do that all the time, it helps you personally. But it’s a good business decision — let’s put it that way. The ultimate thing is that you feel better about yourself, and you’re a happier person.</p> <p>If America is the pursuit of happiness, the best way to pursue happiness is to help other people. Because there’s nothing else that will make you happy. You can be as rich, and famous, and powerful as you want to be, and it will not bring you happiness. That’s said over and over and over, again. It’s such a cliché that it hardly needs to be said, but people don’t understand that it’s actually true. You can find people rich, powerful and famous, and they aren’t happy. And you can find people who have discovered the fact that it’s really helping people, it’s really being compassionate toward other human beings that makes you happy, that gives you a spiritual fulfillment — a kind of fulfillment that goes way beyond anything you can buy. This is a 5,000 year old idea, and every prophet, every intelligent, rational, successful person has said it. It’s a very, very simple idea and the most important part of it is, true.</p> <p><strong>You’ve won three Oscars. Do you ever feel like you’ve made it and now you just want to relax and enjoy your success?</strong></p> <p>George Lucas: I look at it a little bit differently. I have a lot of ideas and I want to be able to work. To me, it’s like one of these contests where you get five minutes in a supermarket to take anything off the shelves you want and try to fill your cart up as much as you can. That’s the way I look at my work. I have a supermarket full of ideas and the challenge is how many ideas can I get in my cart before I’m gone. When you’re doing it, you’re not focused on success. It’s not a matter of modesty. You’re simply trying to get all the things done that you want to get done in your life.</p> <p><strong>Are there obligations that go along with the kind of success you’ve had?</strong></p> <p>George Lucas: I think as you grow up, you realize you have obligations just in your life — being a citizen, being part of humanity — to help other people, to help your country, to help the world. When I started out and I wasn’t successful, I taught and I did other things, and got into several programs, charities and that sort of thing.</p> <p>When I got very, very successful, I didn’t have the time for that level of participation anymore. I got into a loop where I said, “When I get old, I’ll give all this money to all these institutions.” I was still in my 20s. And as things came along, people in trouble, schools and institutions in trouble, I said, “Oh, I can’t. Wait until I’m 50. I can’t do this when I’m 20.”</p> <p>After a lot of struggling and sort of reflection I realized that the time you have to give is now, regardless of how old you are. It’s kind of a realization because one is kind of — “You mean I’m in that position already?” It’s sort of a way of saying, “Oh my gosh, I’m one of them! I’m one of those old guys that gives libraries to schools and things, and here I am, only 20 or 27.” And I think I’ve seen again a lot of people go through this, who are working so hard, they wake up one day and realize that those things that they said, “I’ll do that someday, I’ll do that someday.” Well, that someday is today. And if you have the means to do it, then this is the time to do it. And it’s a little hard to do when you’re building up your nest egg so to speak, your security blanket, to give it away. You know, my feeling is if you can’t give the time away, you should give part of your resources away.</p> <p>I think that’s an obligation you have, to give back no matter what happens. It actually ends up being easier when you’re young than when you become successful. Suddenly you realize you’ve gone into a whole other realm of philanthropy, from just being a volunteer to being this person that dedicates buildings and saves lots of children in some faraway place.</p> <p><strong>What do you see as your contributions to your profession and to film?</strong></p> <p>George Lucas: In the end, the most important thing to me is that I’ve raised three kids. I know that’ll be the most important accomplishment of my life and it is the most easily obtainable, because all you have to do is pay attention. It is hard work and most people don’t realize that’s the real gift they are getting in terms of goals and success and accomplishments.</p> <p>On the professional side, I’ve helped move cinema from a chemical-based medium to a digital-based medium. That’ll be one of the landmarks. And I’ve left these stories, these little tales that have been imprinted on the media, which will or will not be of interest to people in the future. I’ve done the best I can. They’ve obviously made a big mark while I’m here, but if you study history, you know you can make a huge mark during your lifetime, and a lifetime later it’s forgotten.</p> <p>You may make something you don’t think is very important during your lifetime and it’ll last for a thousand years. You can’t really focus too much on that part of it, because you don’t know what history is going to throw at you in terms of what’s important and what’s not important.</p> <p>You simply have to do the best you can with what you’re actually doing. I’m hoping I can make some change in the way the educational system works. I think I’ve made some changes in the way the film industry works, and I think there will be more dramatic changes to come. I’m enthusiastic about that and I have a feeling that will be part of my legacy.</p> <p><strong>Terrific. Is there anything we haven’t talked about that you want to talk about?</strong></p> <p>George Lucas: I can’t think of anything. We’ve certainly talked about a lot.</p> <p><strong>That’s great. Thank you very much.</strong></p> </div>  </aside>  <div class="read-more__toggle collapsed" data-toggle="collapse" data-target="#full-interview"><a href="#" class="sans-4 btn">Read full interview</a></div> </article> </section> </div> <div class="tab-pane" id="gallery" role="tabpanel"> <section class="isotope-wrapper">  <header class="toolbar toolbar--gallery bg-white clearfix"> <div class="col-md-6"> <div class="serif-4">George Lucas Gallery</div> </div> <div class="col-md-6 text-md-right isotope-toolbar"> <ul class="list-unstyled list-inline m-b-0 text-brand-primary sans-4"> <li class="list-inline-item" data-filter=".photo"><i class="icon-icon_camera"></i>33 photos</li> </ul> </div> </header> <div class="isotope-gallery isotope-box single-achiever__gallery clearfix"> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.64473684210526" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Coppala_Lucas_10_photofest.jpg" data-image-caption="George Lucas and lifelong friend Francis Ford Coppola at Lucas's Skywalker Ranch. (© LucasFilm, Ltd.)" data-image-copyright="Coppala_Lucas_10_photofest" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Coppala_Lucas_10_photofest-380x245.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Coppala_Lucas_10_photofest-760x490.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.68289473684211" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Lucas_revenge-of-the-sith_photofest.jpg" data-image-caption="Star Wars director George Lucas frames a scene for "Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith" (2005), while actor Samuel L. Jackson (as Jedi Mace Windu) looks on. (Lucasfilm Ltd./Photofest/Photographer: Merrick Morton)" data-image-copyright="Lucas_revenge of the sith_photofest" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Lucas_revenge-of-the-sith_photofest-380x260.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Lucas_revenge-of-the-sith_photofest-760x519.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.91447368421053" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Lucas-student-film010.jpg" data-image-caption="George Lucas directing his student film "THX" in 1967. (© LucasFilm, Ltd.)" data-image-copyright="Lucas student film010" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Lucas-student-film010-380x347.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Lucas-student-film010-760x695.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.665625" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Lucas-Spielberg-corbis-U2142403-22.jpg" data-image-caption="George Lucas (right) and Steven Spielberg, the two men responsible for the six most popular films of all time, place their hands and feet in cement in the forecourt of Mann's Chinese Theater in Hollywood, May 16, 1984. (Image by © Bettmann/CORBIS)" data-image-copyright="George Lucas and Steven Spielberg" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Lucas-Spielberg-corbis-U2142403-22-380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Lucas-Spielberg-corbis-U2142403-22.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.665625" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/lucas-spielberg-corbis-BE023592.jpg" data-image-caption="George Lucas and Steven Spielberg leave their mark in cement in the courtyard of the Chinese Theater in Hollywood, May 16, 1984. (Image by © Bettmann/CORBIS)" data-image-copyright="George Lucas and Steven Spielberg at Chinese Theater" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/lucas-spielberg-corbis-BE023592-380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/07/lucas-spielberg-corbis-BE023592.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66842105263158" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Lucas-George484.jpg" data-image-caption="Director George Lucas frames a shot. (LucasFilm)" data-image-copyright="Director George Lucas frames a shot. (LucasFilm)" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Lucas-George484-380x254.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Lucas-George484-760x508.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.75" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Lucas-George192-2.jpg" data-image-caption="George Lucas and R2D2 on the set of "Star Wars." (Lucasfilms Ltd.)" data-image-copyright="George Lucas and R2D2 on the set of Star Wars. (Lucasfilms Ltd.)" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Lucas-George192-2-380x285.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Lucas-George192-2-760x570.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.4990138067061" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Lucas-George189.jpg" data-image-caption="George Lucas on the set of "Star Wars, Episode I: The Phantom Menace," with R2D2 and Jake Lloyd as young Anakin Skywalker." data-image-copyright="Lucas George189" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Lucas-George189-254x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Lucas-George189-507x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.3013698630137" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Lucas-George188.jpg" data-image-caption="George Lucas, 1991. (© LucasFilm, Ltd.)" data-image-copyright="George Lucas, 1991. (© LucasFilm, Ltd.)" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Lucas-George188-292x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Lucas-George188-584x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.67894736842105" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Lucas-George-Raiders014.jpg" data-image-caption="George Lucas on the set of "Raiders of the Lost Ark." (© LucasFilm, Ltd.)" data-image-copyright="George Lucas on the set of Raiders of the Lost Ark. (© LucasFilm, Ltd.)" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Lucas-George-Raiders014-380x258.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Lucas-George-Raiders014-760x516.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.68947368421053" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Lucas-Coppola-Spielberg190.jpg" data-image-caption="From left to right, Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, Brian Da Palma, George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola: old friends who stuck together and became the foremost filmmakers of their era." data-image-copyright="Lucas Coppola Spielberg190" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Lucas-Coppola-Spielberg190-380x262.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Lucas-Coppola-Spielberg190-760x524.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.70263157894737" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Lucas-AP-040911020390.jpg" data-image-caption="Directors Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas before the screening of the latest movie directed by Lucas, "THX 1138," at the 30th American Film Festival of Deauville, Western France, on September 11, 2004. (AP/Franck Prevel)" data-image-copyright="Lucas AP 040911020390" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Lucas-AP-040911020390-380x267.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Lucas-AP-040911020390-760x534.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.79473684210526" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Lucas-and-Ford_photofest.jpg" data-image-caption="George Lucas and motion picture actor Harrison Ford on the set of "Raiders of the Lost Ark," 1981. (PhotoFest)" data-image-copyright="Lucas and Ford_photofest" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Lucas-and-Ford_photofest-380x302.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Lucas-and-Ford_photofest-760x604.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66315789473684" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Lucas-and-C3PO_photofest.jpg" data-image-caption="George Lucas with actor Anthony Daniels, in costume as C3PO, on the set of "Star Wars," 1977. (PhotoFest)" data-image-copyright="Lucas and C3PO_photofest" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Lucas-and-C3PO_photofest-380x252.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Lucas-and-C3PO_photofest-760x504.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.65921052631579" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Lucas-Am-Grafitti009.jpg" data-image-caption="Director George Lucas preparing a difficult shot for American Graffiti," 1973. (© LucasFilm, Ltd.)" data-image-copyright="Preparing a difficult shot for American Graffiti, 1973. (© LucasFilm, Ltd.)" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Lucas-Am-Grafitti009-380x250.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Lucas-Am-Grafitti009-760x501.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.65263157894737" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Lucas-WRR.jpg" data-image-caption="George Lucas meets the future chairman of the Academy of Achievement, Wayne R. Reynolds, at the 1989 Banquet of the Golden Plate in San Francisco, California. (© Academy of Achievement)" data-image-copyright="Lucas & WRR" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Lucas-WRR-380x248.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Lucas-WRR-760x496.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.5049504950495" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/George-Lucas054.jpg" data-image-caption="George Lucas on the set of "Star Wars, Episode I: The Phantom Menace." (PhotoFest)" data-image-copyright="George Lucas on the set of Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. (PhotoFest)" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/George-Lucas054-253x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/07/George-Lucas054-505x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66710526315789" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/wordpress_1170.jpg" data-image-caption="George Lucas discusses film and society with Academy students during the 2008 International Achievement Summit in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii. (© Academy of Achievement)" data-image-copyright="wordpress_1170" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/wordpress_1170-380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/04/wordpress_1170-760x507.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.74868421052632" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/wordpress_06Academy_040.jpg" data-image-caption="Summit Hosts Steven Spielberg and George Lucas welcome the Academy of Achievement to Los Angeles in 2006. (© Academy of Achievement)" data-image-copyright="wordpress_06Academy_040" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/wordpress_06Academy_040-380x285.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/04/wordpress_06Academy_040-760x569.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66710526315789" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/wordpress_lucas_Academy2005_0553.jpg" data-image-caption="George Lucas, a member of the Academy's Awards Council, takes questions from student delegates. (© Academy of Achievement)" data-image-copyright="wordpress_lucas_Academy2005_0553" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/wordpress_lucas_Academy2005_0553-380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/04/wordpress_lucas_Academy2005_0553-760x507.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66710526315789" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/ephron-lucas-2007-academy_1625.jpg" data-image-caption="George Lucas presents Nora Ephron with the Golden Plate Award at the 2007 International Achievement Summit in Washington, D.C. (© Academy of Achievement)" data-image-copyright="" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/ephron-lucas-2007-academy_1625-380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/ephron-lucas-2007-academy_1625-760x507.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/01h_awardees_Obamas-crop.jpg" data-image-caption="A gala celebration of the re-opening of Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C. From left to right: George Lucas and his wife, Mellody Hobson, First Lady Michelle Obama, Sidney Poitier and President Barack Obama, February 11, 2009. George Lucas and Sidney Poitier each received Ford's Theatre's Abraham Lincoln Medal at the gala ceremonies." data-image-copyright="01h_awardees_Obamas-crop" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/01h_awardees_Obamas-crop-380x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/04/01h_awardees_Obamas-crop-760x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.5139442231076" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/GettyImages-51064520_master.jpg" data-image-caption="George and Marcia Lucas were married from 1969 to 1983. They met while George Lucas was attending film school at the University of Southern California. In 1977, Marcia earned the Academy Award for Best Film Editing for "Star Wars." (Photo By Julian Wasser/Getty Images)" data-image-copyright="George And Martha Lucas Photo: Wasser / Liaison Agency" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/GettyImages-51064520_master-251x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/07/GettyImages-51064520_master-502x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/GettyImages-143827128_master.jpg" data-image-caption="Director George Lucas photographed in 1998 for "Self Assignment" in Marin County, California. (Photo by Blake Little/Contour by Getty Images)" data-image-copyright="George Lucas, Self, 1999" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/GettyImages-143827128_master-380x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/07/GettyImages-143827128_master-760x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/GettyImages-143827135_master.jpg" data-image-caption="Director George Lucas photographed in 1998 at Industrial Light & Magic in Marin County, California. (Photo by Blake Little/Contour by Getty Images)" data-image-copyright="George Lucas, Self, 1999" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/GettyImages-143827135_master-380x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/07/GettyImages-143827135_master-760x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/wp-GettyImages-143827140_master.jpg" data-image-caption="Director George Lucas photographed in 1998 at Skywalker Ranch in Marin County, California. (Photo by Blake Little/Contour by Getty Images)" data-image-copyright="George Lucas, Self, 1999" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/wp-GettyImages-143827140_master-380x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/07/wp-GettyImages-143827140_master-760x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66710526315789" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/wp-lucas-GettyImages-163157424.jpg" data-image-caption="George Lucas at Skywalker Ranch — designed to accommodate the creative, technical and administrative needs of his company — in Marin County, California, April 29, 2005. (Jean-Louis Atlan/Getty Images)" data-image-copyright="Rendezvous With George Lucas At The Skywalker Ranch" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/wp-lucas-GettyImages-163157424-380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/07/wp-lucas-GettyImages-163157424-760x507.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.63157894736842" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/wp-Lauren-Ralph-and-Lucas-George-1989-Summit.jpg" data-image-caption="Fashion designer Ralph Lauren and motion picture director George Lucas: two of the American Academy of Achievement's guests of honor at the 1989 Banquet of the Golden Plate ceremonies in San Francisco, California." data-image-copyright="wp-Lauren,-Ralph-and-Lucas,-George-1989-Summit" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/wp-Lauren-Ralph-and-Lucas-George-1989-Summit-380x240.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/07/wp-Lauren-Ralph-and-Lucas-George-1989-Summit-760x480.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.4901960784314" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/wp-Lucas-George-and-Morgan-Freeman.jpg" data-image-caption="Morgan Freeman receives the Academy's Golden Plate Award from George Lucas." data-image-copyright="wp-lucas-george-and-morgan-freeman" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/wp-Lucas-George-and-Morgan-Freeman-255x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/11/wp-Lucas-George-and-Morgan-Freeman-510x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66184210526316" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/wp-Cameron-James-and-other-Academy-members-Lucas-and-Woodward-participating-in-a-Summit-panel-discussion.jpg" data-image-caption="George Lucas moderating a Summit panel discussion with Bob Woodward, James Cameron, Rita Dove and Ben Bradlee." data-image-copyright="wp-cameron-james-and-other-academy-members-lucas-and-woodward-participating-in-a-summit-panel-discussion" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/wp-Cameron-James-and-other-Academy-members-Lucas-and-Woodward-participating-in-a-Summit-panel-discussion-380x252.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/09/wp-Cameron-James-and-other-Academy-members-Lucas-and-Woodward-participating-in-a-Summit-panel-discussion-760x503.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.0026385224274" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/wp-GettyImages-607393720.jpg" data-image-caption="George Lucas and Maggie McOmie on the set of "THX 1138". THX 1138 was George Lucas’s directorial debut back in 1971. The film, produced by Francis Ford Coppola, brings us to a dystopian future world where the human population is controlled by a police force of robots and subjected to drugs that subdue all emotions. Based on a student film by Lucas himself, it features Robert Duvall as the main protagonist and titular character. (Photo by Sunset Boulevard/Corbis via Getty Images)" data-image-copyright="On the Set of "THX 1138"" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/wp-GettyImages-607393720-380x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/07/wp-GettyImages-607393720-758x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.5605749486653" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/wp-PAR66261.jpg" data-image-caption="1972: George Lucas on the set of his "American Graffiti," filmed in and around the Bay Area. It was his second feature film, following "THX 1138" (1971)" data-image-copyright="STD1972008W00007-27A.jpg" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/wp-PAR66261-244x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/07/wp-PAR66261-487x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.25" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/wp-2280-book_Saturday-Evening-GPR-Ross-Lucas-Brown-154.jpg" data-image-caption="Golden Plate Awards Council members George Lucas and former San Francisco Mayor Willie L. Brown, Jr. present the Academy's Gold Medal to musical icon Diana Ross after her performance at the Banquet of the Golden Plate during the 2014 International Achievement Summit in San Francisco, California." data-image-copyright="wp-2280-book_Saturday-Evening-GPR-Ross-Lucas-Brown-154" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/wp-2280-book_Saturday-Evening-GPR-Ross-Lucas-Brown-154-304x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/07/wp-2280-book_Saturday-Evening-GPR-Ross-Lucas-Brown-154-608x760.jpg"></div>  </figure>    </div> </section> </div> </div> <div class="container"> <footer class="editorial-article__footer col-md-8 col-md-offset-4"> <div class="editorial-article__next-link sans-3"> <a href="#"><strong>What's next:</strong> <span class="editorial-article__next-link-title">profile</span></a> </div> <ul class="social list-unstyled list-inline ssk-group m-b-0"> <li class="list-inline-item"><a href="" class="ssk ssk-facebook" data-gtm-category="social" 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Bush</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/susan-butcher/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Susan Butcher</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/sir-michael-caine/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sir Michael Caine</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/james-cameron/"><span class="achiever-list-name">James Cameron</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/benjamin-s-carson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Benjamin S. Carson, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/jimmy-carter/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Jimmy Carter</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/johnny-cash/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Johnny Cash</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/william-j-clinton/"><span class="achiever-list-name">William J. Clinton</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/francis-s-collins/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/denton-a-cooley/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Denton A. Cooley, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/francis-ford-coppola/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Francis Ford Coppola</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/ray-dalio/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ray Dalio</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/olivia-de-havilland/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Dame Olivia de Havilland</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/michael-e-debakey-m-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Michael E. DeBakey, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/michael-dell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Michael S. Dell</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/ron-dennis/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ron Dennis</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/joan-didion/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Joan Didion</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/david-herbert-donald-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">David Herbert Donald, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/david-doubilet/"><span class="achiever-list-name">David Doubilet</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/jennifer-a-doudna-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Jennifer A. Doudna, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/rita-dove/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Rita Dove</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/sylvia-earle/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sylvia Earle, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/elbaradei/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Mohamed ElBaradei</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/gertrude-elion/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Gertrude B. Elion, M.Sc.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/larry-j-ellison/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Larry J. Ellison</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/nora-ephron/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Nora Ephron</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/julius-erving/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Julius Erving</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/tony-fadell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Tony Fadell</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/paul-farmer/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Paul Farmer, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/suzanne-farrell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Suzanne Farrell</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/anthony-s-fauci-m-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Anthony S. Fauci, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/sally-field/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sally Field</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/lord-norman-foster/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lord Norman Foster</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/aretha-franklin/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Aretha Franklin</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/milton-friedman-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Milton Friedman, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/carlos-fuentes/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carlos Fuentes</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/athol-fugard/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Athol Fugard</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/peter-gabriel/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Peter Gabriel</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/ernest-j-gaines/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ernest J. Gaines</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/william-h-gates-iii/"><span class="achiever-list-name">William H. Gates III</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/leymah-gbowee/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Leymah Gbowee</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/frank-gehry/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frank O. Gehry</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/murray-gell-mann-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Murray Gell-Mann, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/carlos-ghosn/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carlos Ghosn</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/vince-gill/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Vince Gill</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/ruth-bader-ginsburg/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ruth Bader Ginsburg</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/louise-gluck/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Louise Glück</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/whoopi-goldberg/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Whoopi Goldberg</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/jane-goodall/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Dame Jane Goodall</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/doris-kearns-goodwin/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Doris Kearns Goodwin, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/mikhail-s-gorbachev/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Mikhail S. Gorbachev</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/nadine-gordimer/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Nadine Gordimer</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/stephen-jay-gould/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Stephen Jay Gould, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/carol-greider-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carol W. Greider, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/john-grisham/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John Grisham</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/sir-john-gurdon/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sir John Gurdon</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/dorothy-hamill/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Dorothy Hamill</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/demis-hassabis-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Demis Hassabis, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/lauryn-hill/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lauryn Hill</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/sir-edmund-hillary/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sir Edmund Hillary</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/reid-hoffman/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Reid Hoffman</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/khaled-hosseini/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Khaled Hosseini, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/ron-howard/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ron Howard</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/john-hume/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John Hume</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/louis-ignarro-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Louis Ignarro, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/daniel-inouye/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Daniel K. Inouye</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/jeremy-irons/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Jeremy Irons</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/john-irving/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John Irving</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/kazuo-ishiguro/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sir Kazuo Ishiguro</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/sir-peter-jackson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sir Peter Jackson</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/donald-c-johanson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Donald C. Johanson, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/frank-m-johnson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frank M. Johnson, Jr.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/philip-johnson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Philip C. Johnson</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/chuck-jones/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Chuck Jones</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/james-earl-jones/"><span class="achiever-list-name">James Earl Jones</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/quincy-jones/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Quincy Jones</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/beverly-joubert/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Beverly Joubert</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/dereck-joubert/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Dereck Joubert</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/paul-kagame/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Paul Kagame</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/thomas-keller-2/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Thomas Keller</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/anthony-m-kennedy/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Anthony M. Kennedy</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/carole-king/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carole King</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/b-b-king/"><span class="achiever-list-name">B.B. King</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/coretta-scott-king/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Coretta Scott King</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/henry-kissinger-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Henry A. Kissinger, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/willem-j-kolff/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Willem J. Kolff, M.D., Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/wendy-kopp/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Wendy Kopp</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/henry-r-kravis/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Henry R. Kravis</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/nicholas-d-kristof/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Nicholas D. Kristof</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/mike-krzyzewski/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Mike Krzyzewski</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/ray-kurzwell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ray Kurzweil</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/eric-lander-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Eric S. Lander, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/robert-s-langer-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Robert S. Langer, Sc.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/richard-leakey/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Richard E. Leakey</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/leon-lederman-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Leon Lederman, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/robert-lefkowitz-m-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Robert J. Lefkowitz, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/congressman-john-r-lewis/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Congressman John R. Lewis</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/maya-lin/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Maya Lin</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/george-lucas/"><span class="achiever-list-name">George Lucas</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/paul-b-maccready-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Paul B. MacCready, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/norman-mailer/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Norman Mailer</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/peyton-manning/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Peyton Manning</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/wynton-marsalis/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Wynton Marsalis</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/john-c-mather-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John C. Mather, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/johnny-mathis/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Johnny Mathis</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/ernst-mayr-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ernst Mayr, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/willie-mays/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Willie Mays</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/frank-mccourt/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frank McCourt</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/david-mccullough/"><span class="achiever-list-name">David McCullough</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/audra-mcdonald/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Audra McDonald</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/admiral-william-h-mcraven/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Admiral William H. McRaven, USN</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/w-s-merwin/"><span class="achiever-list-name">W. S. Merwin</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/reinhold-messner/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Reinhold Messner</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/james-a-michener/"><span class="achiever-list-name">James A. Michener</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/marvin-minsky-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Marvin Minsky, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/mario-j-molina-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Mario J. Molina, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/n-scott-momaday-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">N. Scott Momaday, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/story-musgrave/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Story Musgrave, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/ralph-nader/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ralph Nader</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/peggy-noonan/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Peggy Noonan</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/jessye-norman/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Jessye Norman</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/tommy-norris/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lt. Thomas R. Norris, USN</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/joyce-carol-oates/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Joyce Carol Oates</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/pierre-omidyar/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Pierre Omidyar</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/jimmy-page/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Jimmy Page</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/larry-page/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Larry Page</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/arnold-palmer/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Arnold Palmer</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/leon-panetta/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Leon Panetta</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/rosa-parks/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Rosa Parks</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/suzan-lori-parks/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Suzan-Lori Parks</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/linus-pauling/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Linus C. 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Ride, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/sonny-rollins/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sonny Rollins</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235236/https://achievement.org/achiever/anthony-romero/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Anthony D. 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