Expand / Collapse search
☰

Star Wars' spacecraft designer dies at 90

Published  May 22, 2022 2:36pm PDT
Entertainment
Associated Press
Image 1 of 3
▼

A photomatched 1976 Pyro X-Wing Starfighter model miniature from the 1977 film "Star Wars: A New Hope" is displayed at Propstore in Valencia, California, on May 9, 2022, before auction in Hollywood next month. (Photo by Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images)

Colin Cantwell, the man who designed the spacecraft in the "Star Wars" films, has died. He was 90.

The Hollywood Reporter reported Sunday that Sierra Dall, Cantwell's partner, confirmed that he died at his home in Colorado on Saturday.

Cantwell designed the prototypes for the X-wing Starfighter, TIE fighter and Death Star.

He also worked on films including "2001: A Space Odyssey," "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" and "WarGames."

Cantwell was born in San Francisco in 1932. Before working on Hollywood films, Cantwell attended the University of California, Los Angeles, where he got a degree in animation. He also attended Frank Lloyd Wright's School of Architecture.

In the 1960s he worked at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and NASA on educational programs about flights. Cantwell worked with NASA to feed Walter Cronkite updates during the 1969 moon landing.

Cantwell wrote two science fictions novels. He is survived by his partner of 24 years, Sierra Dall.