Peter Mayhew

In 2013, he was forced to undergo double knee replacement surgery as a result of of his towering height.

(November 14-16, 2008) Attended the Big Apple Comic Con.

Became a naturalized United States citizen, along with 441 other people from 77 countries, in Arlington, Texas on October 17, 2005.

Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999) and Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005) premiered on his 55th and 61st birthdays respectively. He appeared in the latter but not the former.

Fell sick during the filming of Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980), which prompted director Irvin Kershner to bring in another extremely tall actor to fill in for him as Chewbacca. All the footage with the double was scrapped and reshot after Mayhew recovered because Irvin Kershner found that the double's body movements did not match Mayhew's.

Schneer cast him in Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger (1977), Ray Harryhausen's special effects film. A year later, he was offered another role. Mayhew was told it was for a big hairy beast.

It was the role of Chewbacca, the faithful 200 year-old Wookiee in Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977) and his life was changed forever. Following the original Star Wars trilogy, he made several television commercials in the Wookiee costume.

Peter Mayhew was born on May 19, 1944 in Barnes, London, England, to Constance Elizabeth (Yeates) and Walter Henry Mayhew. Later resident in Texas, this former resident of Yorkshire, England, was working as a hospital attendant at the King's College Hospital in London when film producer Charles H. Schneer saw his photo, literally standing above the crowd around him.