NEWS

Patty Maloney, who played Chewbacca’s son Lumpy on The Star Wars Holiday Special, has passed away March 31st, 2025 at the age of 89.

While the original Star Wars is about the adventures of Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, and Princess Leia, the Holiday Special is at heart the story of the simple home life of Chewbacca and his family…and in particular, Lumpy – his ambitious and rambunctious son. The 3′ 11″ actress was perfect for the part, due to her background in physical movement with acting, allowing her to convey emotions while often hidden behind a costume and mask. Part of this was with her physical body, and part of it was through creature designer Stan Winston’s animatronics for Lumpy’s face, which had to be operated through wires while Patty was in the costume. A difficult and tedious task, but Patty pulled it off amazingly well and sold the performance.

Patty had a long and storied career that included roles on shows like Far Out Space Nuts, Little House On The Prairie, The Love Boat, Charlie’s Angels, and Trapper John, M.D. and Tales From The Crypt, in addition to being in The Star Wars Holiday Special in 1978. She started experiencing health problems in 2010, and had been in hospice care in Winter Park, Florida when she died.

During the 30th anniversary of the Holiday Special back in 2008 we had a lovely interview with Patty Maloney regarding her work and in particular her work on the Special. You can read the original interview here.

Also, here is a video clip from the fan mockumentary Hanlet: Episode 4 & 1/2 – Attack of the Phantom Special, by brothers Jacob and Jake Adams, featuring an interview with Patty Maloney.

Just a heads-up that our friend Steve Kozak, one of the director-producers of the A Disturbance In The Force documentary, will be doing a book signing at Book Soup in West Hollywood, CA on Saturday, 12/09/23 at 4 pm. More info can be found at the Book Soup website here.

AITD BD cover

Happy Life Day! Big news here: December 5th marks the day you can get the Holiday Special documentary, A Disturbance In The Force, on digital, DVD, and Blu-ray formats.

You can pre-order the movie on Blu-ray here or on DVD here (paid links). For digital, go here.

Yesterday, Raquel Welch passed away. She was a star in her own right, but she actually had a connection to The Star Wars Holiday Special that is not commonly known.

Back in early 1978 when the Holiday Special was being planned, a 5 page story treatment was written up that detailed a very different version of the story than the one we eventually saw. In it, there was a character meant to be an Imperial spy, who the treatment suggest could be played by Raquel. Excerpt from the story treatment:

“An Imperial base. The Imperial Commander is tracking the progress of the Starship Musica, and tells his aides that the ship must not be allowed to reach the Wookiee planet. Someone must go aboard and sabotage the ship. Guest Star (Raquel Welch?) volunteers for the job, and leaves to intercept the Starship.”

Shortly after this, the story treatment continues:

“Raquel has arrived on board the Starship Musica, and in the midst of the final preparations, she starts vamping the Starship commander, to gain his confidence. R2 and 3PO observe this, and since they are not programmed to know about what she’s up to, they tell the commander they must report it to Luke. The commander, who rather enjoyed Raquel’s attention, reminds them that they know nothing about the ways of a man and a woman.”

It all culminates in Raquel finally fulfilling her mission – though it is unclear what happens to her afterwards:

“On board the Starship, something indeed is afoot. Raquel under the guise of telling Lumpy a story, with dance and gestures, about what drives a spaceship, dances her way into the power-supply room and screws everything up.”

Would this version of the Holiday Special have been better…or worse…than what we ended up with? Hard to say! In any case, Raquel never became a part of the cast.

Seen here is the November 28, 1978 issue of US magazine, showing Raquel Welch as she would have looked around the time the Holiday Special was being filmed. Had she been in the cast, she might have looked a bit like this.