Car Accident Explained – Here is the story of the tragic car accident that Mark Hamill was in in 1977. Mark Hamill’s resume was diverse before he made his debut as Luke Skywalker in the original Star Wars: A New Hope. He made voiceover appearances on The New Scooby-Doo Movies, participated in the pilot episode of Eight Is Enough, and starred in numerous episodes of the venerable soap opera General Hospital. Star Wars would fundamentally alter both Hamill’s career and the cinema industry as a whole. Low initial expectations for George Lucas’ space opera led to its enormous success and cultural significance.
Along with participating in the 1980 military movie The Big Red One with Lee Marvin and The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia with Dennis Quaid, Hamill returned for two sequels in the years that followed. In contrast to his Star Wars co-star Harrison Ford, who, incidentally, doesn’t worry about Force Ghosts, Hamill took a break from acting after 1983’s Return Of The Jedi in order to put some distance between himself and Luke. Instead, he participated in stage performances of The Elephant Man and Amadeus. He didn’t make a film appearance again until 1989’s Slipstream, a cult sci-fi adventure that also starred Bill Paxton.
The difference in Mark Hamill’s appearance between the original Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back, which was released three years later in 1980, is one thing that is frequently noted. Hamill had a slightly younger appearance in the first film, and while Luke doesn’t seem radically different in the follow-up, he does look older. This is due to the fact that the actor had a broken nose and cheekbone in a vehicle accident in January 1977. In a 1978 interview with Gossip Magazine, Mark Hamill, who has a lot of video game credits, recalled what he could of the accident, saying, “I was out in the sticks somewhere and there were no cars and no traffic, thank God. I was traveling at 65 to 70 mph… I was speeding, going too fast… and what happened, I think, was that I tried to negotiate an off-ramp and lost control, tumbled over, and went off the road.”
The celebrity was also worried about how the incident may affect his profession, remembering “When I first awoke, I was in the hospital and I was quite confident that I had severely harmed me, but I wasn’t sure. The moment a mirror was placed up to my face, I instantly felt as though my career was ended.” Of course, Star Wars came out after Mark Hamill’s vehicle accident, and his career flourished after that. According to rumors, Luke being assaulted by a Wampa in The Empire Strikes Back’s opening sequences was intended to explain why Luke appeared a little different in the follow-up. However, there have been contradicting reports – George Lucas himself has shot this rumor down – Hamill has seemingly never commented on it.
Hamill has racked up many great projects in the decades since the car accident, including giving one of the most iconic Joker performances in Batman: The Animated Series and its assorted spin-offs. Mark Hamill is an icon at this stage in his life and career and has reprised Luke Skywalker once again for both the Star Wars sequel trilogy and episodes of The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett.
