final credits - phil brown
To a generation of Star Wars fans he was Owen Lars, Luke Skywalker's uncle. This minor role in Brown's career came about when George Lucas, filming in England, was in need of an actor with a strong American accent. How Brown came to London reflects one of Hollywood's darkest periods.
Born in Cambridge, Massachusetts Brown first landed stage roles in New York before moving to Los Angeles where he help found the Actors' Laboratory. Brown made his film debut in 1941's "I Wanted Wings," a minor war-effort picture with some major stars -- Ray Milland, William Holden, and Veronica Lake.
In addition to 65 film and television acting credits, Brown directed one film (1951's "The Harlem Globetrotters") when his association with the Acting Lab became the focus of the U.S. government's anti-communism sweep, ending his Hollywood career.
From Brown's official web site:
Ronald Reagan, (then president of the Screen Actor's Guild), Roy Brewer, (head of the Stage Hands Union in Hollywood), The American Legion, and that most powerful and corrupt of all the Red-Haters, J. Edgar Hoover, decided that he was indeed a "Red". They concluded that the Great American Public would be better off if they were not to see Mr. Brown's face on their screen, or view any of the films he had directed. Brown was blacklisted in 1952, along with many others during that disgraceful time in political history.
Brown was named by Lee J. Cobb, who caved in under House Un-American Activities Committee questioning. Cobb, who later regretted naming names, relented after his wife was driven insane and he was nearly bankrupt.
Brown located his family to England where he found steady work on stage and in film and television work. Brown spent a month in Tunisia filming fewer than a handful of scenes for Lucas' 1977 space epic and never gave the role much thought until he returned to the U.S. in the early 1990s. He discovered that his role as Uncle Lars had made him a celebrity and he soon became a popular figure at science fiction conventions.
Brown's last film appearance was in the rarely-seen 1999 short "Battlestar Galactica: The Second Coming," one of several attempts to revive the late 1970s cult TV program. The actress who played Luke's Aunt Beru, Shelagh Fraser, died September 13th, 2000 (Joel Edgerton and Bonnie Piesse recreated the roles for 2005's "Revenge Of The Sith"). Brown has a Bacon number of 2.
Phil Brown died February 9th, 2006 at the age of 89 from pneumonia.
Other Star Wars tributes can be found here.