Star Wars - who was Willrow Hood?

[Cubs]

Okay, bit of a weird story that I thought some of the die-hard Star Wars fans may enjoy. My wife's mate Paula was losing it this morning because she'd just found out her dad was a cult figure. Apparently he'd been an uncredited extra in 'The Empire Strikes Back', playing an engineer running through the corridors of Bespin's Cloud City during the evacuation, carrying an ice-cream maker (later explained as a computer core) wearing an orange jump-suit. I never realised, and neither did she, that Willrow Hood as he was named has since become a cult figure and there are hundreds of people who dress up as him and run madly about at the start of conventions carrying ice-cream makers.

For years his identity has been a mystery because he never found out and since he was uncredited, no-one else could find out anything about him. I can reveal that his name was Egbert Sen and he also appeared on Minder and also as a waiter in Octopussy. He sadly passed 3 years ago and his daughter is just sorry he never knew because he'd have loved all the attention. She might now attend some conventions to see if anyone wants to meet her. 

[Mad Lord Snapcase]

Brilliant story. Here he is:

[AKULA]

Tell Paula, that her dad is a STAR WARS LEGEND…

SKULLFORGE have a figure in his honour “Iced dairy civilian”



 

[YPU]

Now that is an amazing bit of nerd lore you've uncovered! I hope you are sharing this about on other platforms as well?

[OSHIROmodels]

Cool 

[Muzfish4]

That's amazing!

When I was at uni I was friends with a girl whose father was the only Australian in the 1977 film. He was the man who checked up on TK-421.

https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/movies/peter-sumner-australias-link-to-the-original-star-wars-dies-at-74-20161123-gsvfxp.html

Apparently it was a short gig while they were on holidays he did for just a bit of handy pocket money.

[Cubs]

"TK421, why aren't you at your post?"

[Ragnar]

Great story!

That's amazing!

When I was at uni I was friends with a girl whose father was the only Australian in the 1977 film. He was the man who checked up on TK-421.

https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/movies/peter-sumner-australias-link-to-the-original-star-wars-dies-at-74-20161123-gsvfxp.html

Apparently it was a short gig while they were on holidays he did for just a bit of handy pocket money.

For years, I had suspected that it was Peter Sumner.  I first became aware of him in Spyforce.  Looking at his bio, I see that he was in quite a few iconic Australian shows.

[Paul Hicks]

The Ice Cream thing he carries was brought back specifically for the Mandalorian series. Episode one it has Beskar in it. What a story, bittersweet that he never knew how much he was loved.

[Cubs]

Tell Paula, that her dad is a STAR WARS LEGEND…

SKULLFORGE have a figure in his honour “Iced dairy civilian”

Thanks so much for this, I've ordered one (and maybe one for me) from Proteus3d and I'll paint it up as a surprise pressie for her, maybe for Crimbo or something. I'm keeping it a secret for now.

Paula is now doing the rounds, going on various Star Wars sites to talk to anyone who might be interested - as you can imagine it's all a bit of a weird, weird whirlwind for her right now. She even had the pleasure of exposing an outrageous bullshitter who was claiming to know who Willrow was (but conveniently refused to divulge his name) and had boasted about chatting to him 6 months back. Paula informed him he was full of it, on the grounds her dad had been dead 3 years! Apparently the silence of his response was deafening, as was the joy of the fellow posters who had suspected, but not been able to prove his dishonesty.

[Mr Tough Guy]

I converted this guy a while back, but still need to get some paint on him. Just one of the Northstar chaps with a ice cream maker made out of plasticard/rod/tube.

[Elk101]

What a great story. It's sad he never realised what a Star Wars legend he was though. There are action figures available and he even appears in the last Lego Star Wars game.

It'd be great if he could get a film credit for it, even if it was just on IMDB.

[OSHIROmodels]

I converted this guy a while back, but still need to get some paint on him. Just one of the Northstar chaps with a ice cream maker made out of plasticard/rod/tube.

That’s great 

[Cubs]

That's a great conversion and has captured his face brilliantly.

[FramFramson]

I used to play the old Star Wars CCG game, ages ago, and it was the catalyst for a huge expansion in the backstories of every character on screen in the original trilogy because they no only needed heroes, but minor characters to fill out all sorts of secondary roles and often specialized deck types or certain play styles, and every card had a fair bit of space up top for a lore entry. Not just backstories, that game gave 90% of the original trilogy's characters their names, including Willrow Hood.

The Willrow Hood card was the sort of card where the character was meant to represent a more generic class or group of individuals, but they still had to fill those lore boxes, so they would usually put in a story that described the actual character on screen, while explaining they were emblematic of the group they belonged to.