Kenny Baker, 1934-2016

British actor Kenny Baker died yesterday, 12 days short of his 82nd birthday.

Baker is probably best known for playing R2-D2 in the first six Star Wars movies; he obviously could fit into the housing being a whopping 3'8". Apparently, he was planned to reprise the R2-D2 role in the latest Star Wars movie that came out late last year, but illness prevented him from doing so.

Baker played other diminutive characters, such as dwarves in Flash Gordon and The Elephant Man, or an elf in the Cannon Group's version of Sleeping Beauty. The Cannon Group actually made several fairy tale-themed movies in the late 80s; I think I saw their version of Red Riding Hood show up on ThisTV back when I was able to pick up the TV channel that had it as a sub-channel.